Come From Away Finds Its Heart at Arts Club Theatre

The stage of the Stanley BFL CANADA Theatre is nearly empty. A handful of chairs. A few lights. No elaborate sets, no costume changes, no spectacle. Yet when the ensemble begins to sing—"Welcome to the Rock if you come from away"—the theatre fills with the warmth of a small town and the weight of a day that changed everything.

This is how Come From Away works, and this is why Arts Club Theatre Company and Citadel Theatre's co-production, running through August 16, glows with an authenticity that the Broadway version—for all its deserved success—sometimes struggled to locate. The show tells the true story of Gander, Newfoundland, where 7,000 diverted airline passengers landed on September 11, 2001, and where the townspeople of roughly 10,000 opened their homes and hearts without hesitation.

Under director Ashlie Corcoran's hand, the storytelling feels vivid and alive. Each of the seven actors seamlessly shifts between multiple roles—from Gander locals to "Come From Aways" (the outsiders), from airline staff to media. The ingenuity lies not in what's added to the stage, but in what's trusted to happen between the actors and the audience.

Jocelyn Gauthier moves effortlessly between Beverley, the trailblazing pilot, and Annette, a cheerful schoolteacher. A simple removal of her blazer and hat signals the shift. Kamyar Pazandeh transforms from Kevin J, cracking jokes about a stranger's wallet, to Ali, an Egyptian traveller whose story carries a much darker weight. Lisa Michelle and Tenaj Williams portray a frightened African couple, with Michelle also bringing depth to Hannah, a mother searching for news of her firefighter son. Williams also plays Bob, whose early fears of the Gander locals stealing his wallet provide welcome humour in moments of profound tension.

What makes the production land emotionally is how the actors hold the contradictions—the comedy and the dread, the small kindnesses and the historical enormity of the moment. In one breath, the cast are airline call-centre agents fielding frantic calls; with the shift of a chair, they become passengers aboard Beverley's plane as it makes an emergency landing. These transitions happen with precision and clarity, never drawing attention to the mechanics themselves.

The maritime pride here isn't performed; it emerges naturally from how the actors carry themselves, how they speak, the rhythms they find in the Newfoundland dialogue. There's a warmth in how Gander residents invite strangers into their homes, a generosity that feels particular rather than generic.

Come From Away has always been about the idea that in a moment of global crisis, a small town chose connection over fear. It's a story that could feel naïve in 2026, but Corcoran's production grounds it in the specificity of real people—real accents, real fears, real choices—rather than letting it float into sentiment. The all-Canadian cast brings a familiarity to the story that an American production might not; this is our history they're telling, our people's response they're honouring.

By the show's end, when the ensemble reunites the passengers with their loved ones and the full weight of what happened settles in, the near-empty stage becomes a cathedral. The visual design—spare, elevated, precise—gets out of the way and lets the human story occupy the space entirely.

It's a production that understands what theatre does best: create a moment where strangers sit together in the dark and remember what connects us.