COME FROM AWAY


Excitingly reconceived staging and a fresh new design turn the Broadway smash Come From Away’s true-life tale of heroism, humanity, and heart triumphing over terror into one of the most thrilling A Noise Within musicals ever.

September 11, 2001 dawned a morning like any other for the 9,000 residents of Gander, Newfoundland when the “Island People” learned that their local airport, once the refueling hub for commercial and passenger flights crossing the Atlantic, would soon be hosting thousands of international travelers stranded when America closed its airspace for fear of further terrorist attacks.

Recounting the ensuing days from dozens of points of view, Come From Away grabs you from the get-go and never once lets go of your heart, nor does its cast of L.A. triple-threats ever leave the stage as they bring to vivid, vibrant life the Newfoundlanders who opened their hearts and homes to over 7,000 strangers including those aboard the Paris-to-Dallas flight piloted by Beverley Bass (Cassandra Marie Murphy), the first female captain in American Airlines history.

Among the characters they embody are Gander mayor Claude (Geoff Elliott), police constable Oz (Ed F. Martin), school teacher Beulah (Leslie Fera), SPCA worker Bonnie (Juliana Sloan), and fledgling TV reporter Janice (Hannah Sedlacek), and the Plane People who’ve “come from away,” among them African-American New Yorkers Hannah (Amber Liekhus) and Bob (Desmond Newson) and gay couple Kevin and Kevin (Kasey Mahaffy and Nathan Mohebbi), with Englishman Nick (David Nevell) and Dallas native Diane (Trisha Miller) on board to provide romantic sparks.

 Not only that, but all of the above switch nationalities, accents, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations with nary a moment of audience confusion, giving each of Come From Away’s multitude of characters his or her heart-grabbing moment.

Animal lover Bonnie tends to canine, feline, and simian passengers including one very pregnant chimp. Hannah agonizes over the fate of her NYC firefighter son before finding comfort in Gander fireman’s mom Beulah. The Kevins fret about local reaction to a five-year relationship that may not be as strong as they’d like to believe. An Egyptian traveler (Mohebbi as Ali) finds himself the object of suspicion and fear before revealing a hidden talent.

Meanwhile, Tony-nominated book, music, and lyric writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein provide just enough dialog to link scenes and flesh out characters while letting the show’s fourteen songs do most of the storytelling, a mix of traditional Newfoundland rhythms and Broadway pop that proves positively irresistible.

Spanning a veritable gamut of emotions from shock to confusion to anger to frustration to fear to resiliency and ultimately hope, Come From Away tells its epic but intimate story in the most theatrical of ways.

Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and projection designer Nick Santiago eschew the silhouetted trees that formed the backdrop of the original Broadway set, instead backing the action with air traffic control radar screens, aerial maps, neon bar signs, and the wooded Dover Fault 44 miles east of Gander, a collection of images that give this Come From Away a “You Are There” feel.

Rodriguez-Elliott and scenic designer Frederica Nascimento make extensive use of both straightback and spinnable, moveable office chairs to take us from planes to buses to emergency shelters to a local watering hole, sometimes at the mere blink of an eye, and in one particularly dazzling moment, lighting designer Ken Booth and costume designer Garry Lennon transform a row of harried air traffic controllers into nearly a dozen pilots approaching Gander amidst the most terrifying of circumstances.

And it’s not just in its reconceived design and stirring choreography (Rodriguez-Elliott is credited as director-choreographer and Indira Taylor as dance choreographer) that A Noise Within’s Come From Away dazzles.

 I can’t think of another Broadway musical in which so many performers share the wealth as equally as the cast of Come From Away, and what wealth that is, from Murphy’s show-stopping “Me And The Sky,” a celebration of one pioneering woman’s love of flight and her despair at seeing the thing she loves more than anything used as a bomb, to Liekhus’s heartstrings-tugging “I Am Here,” one mother’s prayer for her FDNY son’s safety, to Miller and Nevill’s seize-the-moment duet high above Gander in “Stop The World,”

There’s truly not a weak link in the sensational A Noise Within cast, and if I single out Miller’s revelatory performance as Diane, it’s simply because you’d never guess from her performance and pipes that the A Noise Within treasure hasn’t been doing musicals her entire professional career.

Indeed my only quibble with this particular Come From Away is its addition of an Ensemble member (played by talented newcomer Julianna Picasso) whose extraneous presence goes against Sarnoff and Hein’s deliberately conceived casting concept for their show.

Music director Rod Bagheri conducts a fabulous live seven-piece orchestra* while Jeff Gardner (sound) and Tony Valdés (wigs and makeup) complete one of the best production design teams in town.

Jennifer Cannon, Candace Del Rio, Nicole Delsack, Elizabeth Eden, Ethan Haslam, Lonnie Jones III, Nirvan Patnaik, Brent Schindele, Joey Swift, Jessica Toltzis, and Justin R. Wickman are understudies.

Dialect coach Andrea Odinov has the cast acing multiple accents each. Miranda Johnson-Haddad is dramaturg. Angela Sonner is stage manager and Hope Matthews is assistant stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

There’s no other recent musical that offers a director, choreographer, cast, and design team as much chance to create something as excitingly fresh and new with each iteration as Come From Away. A Noise Within turns this most unique of Broadway miracles into the season’s first major musical must-see.

*Bagheri, Natalie Brejcha, David Catalan, Damion Frigillana, Art Pacheco, Mike Selfridge, and Barrett Wilson

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena. Through November 8. Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30. Saturdays at 2:00 and 7:30, and Sundays at 2:00. (No performance on Halloween.)
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
October 10, 2026
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: , ,

Comments are closed.