Strongest Together

Come From Away creators Irene Sankoff and David Hein on their hit musical, telling an iconic story of hope and becoming honorary Newfoundlanders.

- Courtney Shea

Come From Away has returned to Canada after a successful Broadway run that garnered seven Tony Award nominations. Are you still pinching yourselves? Hein: Every step along the way has been a pinching-ourselves moment. We were never focused on writing a Broadway show. We always just wanted to share an incredible story about these amazing people.

The musical is about the 38 airplanes forced to land in Gander, N.L., on September 11, 2001—and the town’s touching hospitality for all those travellers. How did you first become involved in writing that story?

Sankoff: We had closed our previous show, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, and were having trouble finding our next project. Toronto theatre producer Michael Rubinoff asked to meet us. He shared the idea for Come From Away.

Hein: From there we were fortunate enough to get a Canada Council for the Arts grant, which funded our trip to Gander on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. All of these people who had been stranded there a decade ago—passengers and flight crew from around the world—came back to commemorate what had happened. Gander is a hard place to get to, but they all wanted to be there.