Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The latest musical of Canadian husband-and-wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein will have its world premiere in the 2015/16 season of the La Jolla Playhouse. The new musical by Sankoff and Hein, who wrote My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, is called Come from Away.
Come From Away tells the true story of when seven thousand people landed on the doorstep of Gander, Newfoundland... and the people of Gander "put the kettle on." A rocking musical about when 38 planes from around the world were diverted to a small, Canadian community on September 11, 2001—doubling its population in an instant. While the world witnessed the worst acts of humankind, the stranded passengers had their faith in humanity restored by the spirited people who comforted those who had come from away.
In 2011, David Hein and Irene Sankoff received a Canada Council for the Arts grant to travel to Newfoundland for the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, where they met, interviewed, and were "screeched-in" with returning passengers, pilots and local townsfolk. With an additional grant from the Ontario Arts Council, they first workshopped Come From Away at the inaugural season of The Canadian Music Theatre Project (CMTP), presenting at Sheridan College and the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto. In January, 2013, they developed the show further at Goodspeed Musicals' Festival of New Artists and again in March at CMTP/Sheridan.
About the musical the National Alliance for Musical Theatre said: "Come From Away is a story of humanity set against the backdrop of tragedy. The committee was drawn by the power of the story of a little town caught up in a major world event. A terrific regional score drives this highly original and exciting new work.“
Sankoff and Hein have stated that, “Though we're Canadian writers, we lived in Manhattan on September 11th, 2001 and we were in Newfoundland, along with countless returning passengers, for the tenth anniversary commemoration ceremonies.”
La Jolla Playhouse is located at 2910 La Jolla Village Drive La Jolla, CA. Visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org for more information.
Background from Carey Purcell for www.playbill.com and from http://namt.org/festival-2013.aspx. For more about Sankoff and Hein, visit www.sankoffandhein.com.
Photo: Irene Sankoff and David Hein. ©2014 Alixandra Gould.
2014-11-07
La Jolla, CA: New Canadian musical by Sankoff and Hein will have its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse