The timing couldn't be better for Vancouver-area audiences to see Come From Away at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, where a Broadway Across Canada production is staged from Sept. 10 to 15.
The award-winning musical tells the story of 7,000 stranded passengers and the people of a small Newfoundland town who welcomed them in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Like most of us, that day filled Andrew Hendrick with fear.
"I grew up in a suburb of New York City and my dad actually worked in the World Trade Center," said Hendrick, a cast member in the touring musical.
"He was at work that day but not in the buildings, but he witnessed the planes hitting the buildings from the street and pretty quickly realized that he should get out of New York. He was able to get out before they shut the whole city down and on a train back home to Connecticut before the towers fell."
Hendrick plays Claude Elliott, mayor of Gander, where all those rerouted planes landed that tragic day.
"Telling the story about the people of Gander, it's important," the actor said in a phone call. "Those people opened their doors and welcomed people in and made them feel safe when, you know, it would have been perfectly understandable in the wake of a crazy tragedy and all this confusion, to say, 'You know what? No, you're gonna stay on those planes. We don't want anything to do with this. We're going to protect ourselves.' But instead they took in 7,000 people and treated them like family."
Last month Hendrick and others performed a concert version of the musical at three military bases in the U.S. Midwest.
At its core, the story is about human kindness and generosity, he said.
"I feel good about that because, you know, it's a time, certainly in America but also around the world, where things just feel really divided and not great," said Hendrick, who has long been a fan of Come From Away and first saw the show in Toronto in its pre-Broadway incarnation.
Last year he landed the part of Claude and began rehearsals in September, a year ago.
"I've been doing the show ever since," Hendrick noted. "We just crossed our 250th performance a week ago, so we're trucking along, with another several hundred performances in the next year.
"I'm just really excited to continue doing it, and it's a well-oiled machine now, a group of really talented people including the band, members of which are on stage with us and very much part of the telling of the story, which is really kind of unique for a Broadway musical. Usually the orchestra is kind of hidden away in the orchestra pit, but in our show, they're on stage with us."
