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How to Make a High-Flying Hit- The COME FROM AWAY Team Explains How They Made Their Show Soar
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Nov 4, 2022
Come From Away has been 2017's little musical that could. Soon after opening at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, the show earned seven Tony nominations (picking up one for director Christopher Ashley), coming as quite a shock to the creative team that has been nurturing the project since the beginning. 'We expected Canadian high schools to do it... and now we're on Broadway,' explained creator David Hein.
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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SAG-AFTRA Foundation and Broadway World continue their partnership with a filmed conversation Q&A series
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which celebrates the vibrant theater community here in New York City and the union actors who aspire to have a career
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on both stage and screen. This event, which is coming from the Robin Williams Center
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is a special conversation with the creators and cast of one of Broadway's biggest hits
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the inspiring and joyful musical Come From Away. Enjoy. Well, I'd like to start things off with Irene and David
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It has been quite a journey with bringing Come From Away to Broadway. Is it still surreal or have you been able to put part of it into perspective
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No, it's completely surreal. We're having a very strange dream and we're going to wake up tomorrow and be like
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we had this lovely panel and then... No, it's been an incredibly wonderful experience
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And so we never expected the show would come to Broadway. We wanted to tell the story that we fell in love with
1:04
about Newfoundlanders being kind to people, being kind to the world, and welcoming them into their homes
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and giving them everything in the backdrop of 9-11. And we expected Canadian high schools to do it
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And now we're on Broadway performing with amazingly talented performers with an incredible team
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and it's a joy every day to be sharing this, and it just continues to get more and more surreal every day
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Then the prime minister comes, and then Hillary Clinton comes, and then, you know, it's a really wonderful experience
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Irene, for you. I've just been completely amazed the entire way from the time that we got our show at La Jolla Playhouse
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because I remember speaking to my dad about, you know, what we were doing
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The show was going to go to the States, and we weren't going to stay in Canada like we thought we were, And I was talking about different regional theaters, and I said, you know, we'll never be asked to do La Jolla
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And then there's La Jolla. And then, you know, and then we're crossing the entire continent, Washington up to Toronto
2:07
We were in Seattle, obviously, as well, same continent. And then going out to Gander. I mean, and that was totally surreal, too, because I could tell that everyone we'd interviewed in Gander was kind of, like, looking at us like, you didn't tell us this would happen
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Like, we're like, we didn't know. So, yeah, every step has been surreal
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For the cast, you all play real-life people. How tricky is it playing a living person
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and having them present while you're perfecting it during rehearsal? Tricky. You know, it's mostly there's a sense of responsibility, right
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I play Captain Beverly Bass. She has seen the show over 75 times at this point
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So I'm getting used to it. But there is. there's a great feeling of responsibility. I want to honor her and I want to honor her story. And
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uh, it's quite surreal to a lot of our, our stuff is direct address. So to see her
3:00
while I'm singing about her and to watch her react to me playing, I'm like, I wasn't trained
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for this. Like it's, it's, it's something else. I was, I was fairly lucky because Claude Elliott
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when he first came to see us in Seattle, um, when he first met me, he said, I want you to relax
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He said, it's not about me. It's not about portraying me. It's about telling a story of gander
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And he said, that's what I'm most concerned about. And I said, then I think we're on really good ground
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And after the show, he was exhilarated and very happy. And that just took all the pressure in the world off of me
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He just allowed me to tell the story, which was great. Yeah, we, I didn't meet my person until a few days before
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opening night. And so the cool thing about our director, our director, Christopher, Tony award
3:56
winning Christopher Ashley, he gave us so much freedom to just explore, you know, these characters
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And he definitely told us not to imitate or become, you know, exactly who they are. I play
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Hannah O'Rourke and we are quite different in our looks, I should say. She's a tiny little Irish
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woman. So sweet. And you're not sweet? Don't say that about yourself. We love you
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But that was a beautiful thing is having so much freedom during rehearsal to just sort of
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find our own thing, you know, to tell these stories beautifully. But Hannah's so lovely
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She invited us all over to her house for a barbecue next month. And I am looking forward
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to getting to know her even better. Yeah. I think it's been amazing that the amount of
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love that's come back at us from the people of Gander and the people that come from the ways that
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we also portray, they all are so proud of the stories that are being told that David and Irene
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have put together into this magical piece of theater that I've never felt any pressure or
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fear of doing it. I just felt that there's so much love coming at us and pride that it's really
5:09
fueled our performances. And I think we're just as loving and proud of it now as they have been
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since 9-11 years ago. And Gino's now a honorary constable. Yes, thank you, David
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I am. For Gander. We gotta talk about that parking ticket. No, I am
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I'm an honorary municipal police officer in the town of Gander, Newfoundland now. Yes, thank you so much
5:31
Thank you. That's wonderful. It's also your Broadway debut, right? It is my Broadway debut
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Yeah. Not a bad place to start, huh? Geez. Because I remember speaking to all of you at opening night
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Talk about another surreal evening. Everybody who was portrayed in the show from Gander
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was there on the red carpet and there that opening night. It was one of the most coldest days in New York
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And they had ball gowns on, remember? Yes. No coats. And they were like, I was freezing
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That's why I got my Gander hat. But they were like, we're used to this up there. But it must have been so great to have had them there
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during the whole process. But to have them there opening night on Broadway, of this incredible journey
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They surprised us. The creative team and the producers surprised us. We didn't know as we were taking our bows
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they each came out one by one. And so it was really quite emotional and beautiful
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And they're definitely family members now as well. It was probably one of the best experiences of all
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Because at the end, people are applauding you guys justifiably. But then this New York audience
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applauded everyone from Gander for what they did. And that means the world to us
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That's why we did it, is to celebrate. what they did. And to see that down here
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and to be commemorated by that, that means the world. Because I remember at the opening night party
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Screech is the drink of Gander in Newfoundland? Sure. They drink a lot of things
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but it's one thing. So explain to the audience, what is Screech? We had it that night. We had it at the opening night party
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What is Screech? It's rum. Okay. It's got a little spice in it
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but it's basically rum. And if you buy really cheap rum and you put the spice in it
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it's not terrible. So that's what screech is. That is debatable. Okay
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You don't drink it by the pint, and I learned that the hard way. And it's part of a ceremony that they have called a screech-in
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which is you have to do a number of different things, and it changes the places you do them in
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But basically, you become an honorary Newfoundlander. And Irene and I have been screeching three times
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and when we brought these guys out there, I think we had the largest screech-in event possible
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There was like 70 or 80-something people screeched in all at once
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All of them had to kiss a fish. You have to eat things. You have to say things
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It's a thing. And you have to drink screech. So you're bonded for life, all of you, right
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Yes. Well, for David and Irene, you conducted hundreds of interviews while researching this show
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How painstaking were they to narrow down and how did you choose which characters to highlight in the show Oh my gosh it was horrendously painstaking And in our first draft it was 100 pages before people even got off the plane
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because there's just so many stories to tell. And then how did we do it
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You know, we spread out all of the stories in this cabin in, well, it's not quite northern Ontario, but north enough
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And we put stories of food in a pile, like relationships in a pile
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and then we decided early on that it wasn't a documentary like we were going to have to like
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amalgamate characters if we wanted to include all the stories we wanted to include and we really did
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try to include as many as possible like even in some of the town hall scenes like people are
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yelling out one line and you know that there was like four pages on some of those lines in a
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particular draft um yeah there's a there's a story about uh the air traffic controllers
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had nothing to do because there was nothing flying for five days so they made chili constantly for
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everyone and uh and so we wanted to get that in there and it used to be several scenes and uh it
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eventually got whittled down to one character's line saying i brought some chili for you and
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but it was important to us to get that in there because the air traffic controllers come and they
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sit in the audience and they say you got in the chili you know and and they and it's you know
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we're recognizing that they did that yeah when you began writing come from away were there other
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shows that helped you sort of imagine how you might structure the musical of the narrative
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Yeah, we thought about Laramie a lot. Seeing Peter and the Star Catcher made me look at how
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you can be doing direct address in one moment and then put yourself into a scene
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Once, of course, is a different type of musical. So we're like, okay, so there's room to do things
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differently, to not do things by the book. And then there was a moment we saw
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chorus line up in Stratford, and I was sitting there with Irene
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and Irene was mouthing every single word from it, and I was like, how do you know
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I'd never seen it before, and Irene had clearly seen it 10 million times
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and knew every word, and I realized that even though I hadn't seen it
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it had been, you know, our show, which is direct address and based on interviews, is based on, you know
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And narration in and out of song, like at the ballet in particular, like there's a lot of repetition
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and narration amidst the chorus. Yeah. At what point during the process of writing the show
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was the structure finalized? Like, we have our show now. Are we good
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We froze, right? Night before we opened. Yeah. I feel like we made a million changes along the way
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and yet the structure of the show was mostly the same. The biggest change that happened was
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we cut out an intermission from it, and that was our producers coming to us
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and suggesting that the people who were in Gander at the time, the people who were stuck in Newfoundland
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and the people of Newfoundland, no one had a chance in the middle of these five days to stop in the middle and, you know
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go use the washroom and have a drink and say, how do you think it's going? Do you want to leave? What do you want to do, you know
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So it was an experience that we wanted to bring the audience on from the beginning to the end
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And that was one of the biggest changes. But I think we've debated every single word
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Yeah. And let's talk about your Tony Award-winning director. I mean, Christopher Ashley has so much to do with this show and your musical choreographer, Kelly Devine, and your musical director
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I mean, talk about working with them. They're fabulous. And I think Chris must be one of the most patient men in the world
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He gave us a note for two years that we didn't figure out how to do until, like, just before Broadway
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And he was just really like, okay, well, you'll get it or you won't. And, you know, even at La Jolla, he was like, you know, we'll get this about 80% right
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We figure out here and then we're going to rework it again. And David and I were like, what do you mean
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It has to be perfect yesterday. Just really patient with us as we were figuring ourselves out
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And Kelly, Kelly is brilliant. Kelly has a little chart in her head
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like her spatial ability on the stage to know that the stage is spinning
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and that those spike marks that look like, you know, it's like the top
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Like a constellation turned upside down. She knows where they're going to land. Glad that's not my job
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Yeah, and just they're both brilliant. Yeah, and Ian Eisendrath, our arranger and music supervisor, he's incredible
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He had never heard any Newfoundland music before we started this process. He dove in with both feet tied
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That's the lyric from our show. And now knows more Newfoundland bands than I have ever listened to
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And I grew up on Newfoundland bands. He learned to play accordion and harmonium for it
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Then he realized that the regular accordion wasn't enough. He learned to need button accordion
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He needed to know how to tune the reeds of the accordion. And he has led us on a really amazing musical journey
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representing not just getting Newfoundland music right, but also bringing the world of music there
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so that we're combining to create this sort of musical metaphor, not only contrasting hand drums from Newfoundland
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but hand drums from the Middle East, but then also layering them on top of each other
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so that we create this piece that's stronger together, which is what happened there
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Just the band he put together with an Irish fiddler from Alaska and a wind player from Liverpool
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And an old rocker on the guitar. Baueron player from Newfoundland. It's an amazing group of musicians all at the top of their game who are just playing brilliantly together
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And August Ericsson's orchestrations, we're so blessed to have him. He did Bright Star right before, which was such a huge, you know, another, like once, another point of saying
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oh, we can bring this, you know, this music that's been around for hundreds of years that I've loved since I was a kid
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and put it on a Broadway stage and it sounds like something you've never heard before
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It's really exciting. Sure. For the cast, you all play numerous people
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When you were cast, did you know which roles you were going to play? Yes
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Ish? Yeah, yeah. I auditioned for all of the women, actually, except Beverly Bass's part
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So I think they were still in the developmental stages and not sure exactly how they wanted to place us
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And then I kept getting callbacks that week and being called in for Hannah
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And I think we finally made it happen. there were like for instance i knew claude but um then the first day we did our first reading
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there were things that were assigned to us that i really didn't know i was supposed to read but
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it was like oh that'll be interesting to read in front of a hundred guests who are watching this
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first read and so that was that was an interesting experience but but yeah there were a lot of little
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tiny characters i played didn't have a clue about but you know we figured it out that's half the fun
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of this show is that we do get to play so many different characters we all have primary and or
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maybe secondary characters but i think i have eight named characters not to mention air traffic
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controllers and guy in the stage left of the spear or whatever you know but you know to get a chance
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as an actor to play all those different roles and every day somebody's like well why don't you try
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reading this and do it in this dialect and try it this way that's such a challenge but also such a
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rewarding process to get to play and create this this interesting tapestry of people that all came
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together um so it's uh a fun challenge for sure just to be clear there are no spear carriers in
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the show thank you i was just i was just referencing the world of supernumeraries and opera
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we had some characters that were switched around after we started just because of how it was all
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traffic flowy and yeah we occasionally we'd be workshopping and suddenly we'd be like oh you're
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talking to yourself yeah fix this you know this musical touches audiences on so many
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human levels. Why do you think audiences are embracing this musical so
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It because it a true story about kindness And right now especially in the current political climate being mean has become the norm And spewing vitriol has become completely acceptable And that not what we were taught when we were kids
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It's nice to be nice. And we are all genuinely good at heart
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And this musical is reminding us of that. We need to, I don't care what side you're on, we need to stop being mean to each other
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It's as simple as that. And people are remembering that kindness is very, very important
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For the cast, what is your favorite moment in the show that one of your other cast members sitting here does
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All of them. It's just so amazing. I can't even pick one because just watching my 11 family members
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do what they do best every night, it's the best feeling in the world
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because it's never a competition. Sometimes in this business, you watch and you're like
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hmm, I could do that better. Or they're phoning it in tonight
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It never happens in our show. This is like the most inspiring, artistically inspiring show to be a part of
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to watch all of these wonderful, loving people who are beyond talented
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And I'm black and blue pinching myself to experience all the moments every night. I like prayer
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These three are prominent features in prayer. There's a beautiful moment in the show where there are several different people
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from varying religious backgrounds who are all praying at the same time
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and the music is interwoven together, and it is stunning. I'm not a big prayer, but I pray every night
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I just feel so, so grateful to be able to listen to you and to watch you
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and to feel that it's such a wonderful metaphor for what we need right now
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So that's definitely my favorite moment. I have to say at the end of the show, when I say when Joel brings us all home
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when you make eye contact with us, I'm getting all acclimped right now
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He makes eye contact with us and he sort of sums up what the show is about
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Would you like to say your last few lines? But it's, he means it
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It's from the depth of his heart. It's all from his heart
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And it's just, it's moving. And I look forward to it every night. And I just love it
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It just moves me every single night. Yeah, because you mean it. You mean it, yeah
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I think we all, there is a moment where we have what is called costume party
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it's a song that we worked on and worked on and worked on and worked on and worked on never could
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quite get it right and then we figured it out or they figured it out we all figured it out and um
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when i sit down and i listen to in a crowded room filled with strangers it hits me every night
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and it's the universal feeling of being alone in the world and it's a healing song
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that's beautiful thank you for all of that that's beautiful you know you talked about your incredible fan base you have a fan base of all around the world
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that have come to this show and i was telling them upstairs i also mentioned this on the street to
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people like oh my god i'm coming to see it i've seen the show i moved by it or you know and what
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is each of your favorite fan moment oh oh my gosh so uh there's a one woman who has seen the show
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over 80 times last night was 80 um and she got a tattoo recently um she asked me to write down
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some lyrics from my solo in the show. She took that, my handwriting
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with the lyrics, and then a huge Come From Away logo on her back
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That's a pretty big fan. Yeah. I would say so. We have
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a ton of amazing fans and a lot of them are very talented artists
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Almost every week, I feel like we're getting something from some fan somewhere. There's this one gal, Emma, who did these caricatures of us and gave them to us
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And they are just the most beautiful thing. And she made these beautiful frames to go around it
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And it's something so amazing about when you look at the art, it's not just representative of the people, but it really is the essence of the people
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She captured it. And she loves the show so much. And she paid attention to us so much that she captured every detail of all of us
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It's so amazing because we all love musicals, but some people really love musicals and love this musical
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and it's amazing when you feel that there's that much of a connection that affects people enough
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that they want to give you art back and gratitude for your art it's an incredible feeling yeah
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I think um over and over again when someone approaches me who lost somebody um that day
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uh I'm always you know I'm always taken down a notch I'm always you know thrown back a little bit
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and and they you know and this this is one of my favorite moments but it's also one I don't I'll
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be honest, I don't understand. They always thank me for telling the story. Thank all of us for
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doing the show and telling the story. And they're so grateful. And I'll be honest, I don't understand
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why, but I also know I don't understand why because I'm not in the position that they're in
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And by the grace of God, I wasn't in that position and having lost somebody. So I've
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kind of learned to accept it and take the gratitude, even though I can't understand it
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and kids sorry i love i love the kids i love especially like the little little ones who
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people are like oh they're too young to understand um astrid van weeren told me once that the that
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there was a little girl at the stage door that was just staring at her and staring at her staring at her finally the only thing she came up with was you helped people and i was like done like
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i can go home now you have to keep doing the show but i'm going home it's smarter than you think
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right right david favorite fan moment uh i'm trying to think of one but i'm going to give i'm
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going to give a shout out to our uh our ushers and our amazing team there so uh one of the things
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that i've learned along this process is that ushers are always artists who are who love theater and
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want to see it over and over and over again and i remember in um uh in toronto uh i realized
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halfway through i was like you guys have seen this a million times and and you're really smart
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and I said, what drives you crazy about the show? And they gave me a couple little notes
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and we got them in. But also when they love the show
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and they have seen it hundreds and hundreds of times and they write on Facebook that they love the show
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and they connect with us and they're always happy to see us, that means the world to us
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because they don't have to. And often they tell us shows that they don't like
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But it means the world to us that they're fans of our shows as well. They're also the ambassadors, right
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of our theater, of our house. They are literally the first handshake, the first greeting when people are coming into that house
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So I love that they are so genuinely on our side. I like that
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Oh, and we also have a, this isn't a fan moment of fans coming to us
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but we have a tradition with the show that we started in Toronto of one show
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We go out really early to the lineup outside the theater and we bring donuts and coffee
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and we performed in the dead of winter in Toronto. It was almost pros
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They start lining up at like 3 in the morning for standing room. For rush tickets and standing room
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And we did it here as well and met people from Japan who had come to see the show and, you know, from everywhere
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It was really, it was really cool. Favorite fan moments down at that end
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Gosh, I've been wracking my brain over here trying to figure it out. The fans of our show, and it's, you know, even that word fan is just, I don't know
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the people who love our show, I mean, they're amazing. And there have been so many experiences
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Honestly, I'm trying to figure out one. Last night was amazing. I'll just do that one because
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that's on the forefront of my mind. There's this thing I do at half hour where in my dressing room
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me and Sharon share a dressing room and I open the dressing room window and it's such a beautiful
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view of you know 43rd what street 45th street Lord And you can see all of the shows And so I opened the window and I talked to Broadway They have no idea that I talking to them
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How do you say it? Can you say the word again? You talked to... Oh, Broadway. That's B-R-A-H
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W-A-Y. Broadway. And so I opened the window and I just sort of sometimes read them a poem
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an inspirational quote. I'll tell them about an audition I had earlier that day, theater etiquette and i'm just talking out there and waving and this jen was uh doing something for
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broadway world broadway world right and uh broadway.com the broadway.com yes where she had to
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carry around a camera and sort of videotape things that were going on backstage for the audiences and
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she came to the dressing room one day and was like kate what are you doing and i was like i'm talking to broadway and uh it got posted and from that post people love jen colella obviously
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they're just like reading up on her and so there are people that wait outside now and like wait
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for me to wave to them and stuff and I'm like this is so crazy it's so exciting um so there's a guy
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named JT last night who saw Astrid walk in the door and said can you please tell Q that I'm across
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the street waiting for her to wave hi JT I hope you see this honey um and so I did and we talked
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Jen came and joined us and was doing sign language across the street and talking to
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all the fans and and then he walked me home and we just sort of had great conversation he's a good
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kid yeah i did mine didn't i do mine already i could do more though if you want i we we had a
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um like a week or so ago this uh group of women whose um husbands died in the world trade center
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And one of them said to me, you don't understand, long after you're done doing the show, long after it's closed on Broadway, it's still going to resonate with people who experience that day
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And that hit me, you know, harder than a lot of things that have been said
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So my final question is in this ever-changing business that we call show, what is the best bit of advice that each of you have been given throughout your life, either personally or professionally, that you live by
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Either someone from a teacher or a parent or just something you live by who wants to go first
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It's a big question. It's the same one that I give to my students is you are enough to trust that you are enough
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You don't have to try to emulate someone else. And especially for the younger actors
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there's nothing on your resume that should be there. There's no note you should be able to hit
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Where you are right now is exactly right. And the more you can embrace where your two feet are right now
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and that you're doing the best you can as an artist in this moment, it's going to make it a lot easier
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So You Are Enough is the one for me. Enjoy the ride, I was told once
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because really it's a ride. It's like a roller coaster. There are going to be ups and downs and lefts and rights
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and you don't always know what's coming. You may think, oh, this is going to be horrible. It's a loopy loop
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That was actually fun. I didn't know it was going to be fun. So it's that sort of being open to enjoying it
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and knowing it's a journey. It's not about getting to the end of the ride. You want to enjoy the whole ride
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So that's important for me to try to find the joy in every moment and be open to all of the goods and the bads
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the ups and the downs. It's not always easy, but it's important. i used to read the uh martha graham agnes de mill quote every day um oh my gosh but i can't
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but it's very similar to what jen was saying about um uh there's no one else like you and if you and
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you need to express yourself as you and if you don't then it's just going to be lost so you you
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have to do it you just have to you're never going to be satisfied but you just have to keep going it's basically and it's not your job yeah that's my favorite part is it's not your job to judge
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yourself or anyone else's work it's just your job to to be you and do the work i've totally
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ized that quote but it's out there uh i love gina like the living in the moment thing
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that that's really that that's that's made a huge difference for us and also um uh you know
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cliche it is doing things that scare you uh is so valuable you get to the end of it and you're like
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wow i really did that and i feel like i feel like uh you know every day you know just just blank
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pages scare me a little bit you know and and but you just you just start writing and you're like
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look i wrote something or you're coming into the rehearsal room and being like i hope they like it
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and you know it like it's this business is scary and and it's so rewarding to get to get past that
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and to remember that as you're going into something and be like this is probably going to be awesome
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at the end of it it's scary right now but um there are a couple of things um my dad always says did
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you pray today? And I'm like, yes. And you know, prayer can be small. It can just be being grateful
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walking down the street. Oh, I'm so grateful for the sunshine. That's a prayer. You know what I
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mean? It doesn't have to be always about what you want. You know, oh, I so want to book this gig
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A prayer is just being grateful and acknowledging that there's something working for you and for us
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all as a unit, you know, a divine force pushing us forward. So that's a prayer. He's always saying
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did you pray today? And he always says, it's not how you start, but it's how you end, right? So just
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because you fall today doesn't mean that tomorrow's going to be a bad day. You know, just keep going
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and make sure your life counts in the end, right? So that, and then lastly, my voice and movement
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teacher from Ithaca College gave us pencils that said breathe. And she would always talk about
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breathing, and it took me years to find out what that meant. And I so get it. I so get it. One of
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my best friends called yesterday. She was having a hard time. The only thing I could think of to
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tell her was to just breathe, right? There's so much involved in that. That's a journey for you
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if you're interested in what that's about. That's a whole journey for you. But breathing is quite
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important. I am going along with that a director once said if you're not thinking about your
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breathing you're probably thinking about something that's going to get in your way and I think that's really really valuable. Several thoughts, comfort is highly overrated
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if you haven't figured out a way of having fun with your part it's too damn hard to do
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so figure out a way of having fun with what you're doing and
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I was working on a role once in which the director said Joel Joel you're a nice guy
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everybody here knows you're a nice guy that's not the point of your of your acting here
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you're here to tell the truth of your character and if that's not exactly
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pretty we're just gonna have to live with that but you're gonna be fine at the
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end of the day the audience will still like you and I think sometimes we just
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have to give ourselves permission to be as ugly as we need to be to tell that
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story of that particular character and that's not always easy for us
31:46
Did you finish yours? I started. I let you do. Well, first of all, I have been doing this for a long time
31:54
I want to thank you for one of the most insightful and joyful afternoons that I have had
31:59
For those of you who have already seen Come From Away, you know what you're going to, you know what you've seen
32:04
For those of you who have not seen it, go see this incredible musical. You will have the time of your life, and your life will be changed at Come From Away
32:11
I thank you for taking your Thursday afternoon. Thank you so much, Sreya. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Ladies and gentlemen, the company has come from away
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