Come from Away: History and Key Facts

Come from Away is a musical, with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein. It is based on the events in the Newfoundland town of Gander during the week following the September 11 attacks, when 38 planes, carrying approximately 7,000 passengers, were ordered to land unexpectedly at Gander International Airport. The characters in the musical are based on actual Gander residents and the stranded travelers they housed and fed.

After a successful pre-Broadway run, it opened on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on March 12, 2017, and became a critical and box office success. A live recording of the production was released on September 10, 2021, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the attacks. The Broadway production closed on October 2, 2022, after playing 25 previews and 1,669 regular performances. It has had successful runs in several countries, including playing 1,048 performances in the West End in London.

At the 71st Tony Awards, the musical was nominated for seven awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Jenn Colella, winning for Best Direction of a Musical for Christopher Ashley. At the 2019 Laurence Olivier Awards, it was nominated for nine awards and won three, including Best New Musical.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Come from Away by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.