Ottawa musician returns as associate musical director of Come From Away

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Come From Away

Produced by David and Hannah Mirvish and NAC English Theatre

To Sept. 1, Babs Asper Theatre, National Arts Centre

Tickets and times: nac-cna.ca

A new production of the Canadian musical, Come From Away, is being whipped into shape at the National Arts Centre this month before returning to Toronto for what is expected to be a long-running residency. 

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This is the award-winning and heart-warming musical written by David Hein, who spent his teenage years in Ottawa, and his wife, Irene Sankoff. It’s based on the real-life events of 9/11, when thousands of airline passengers found themselves stranded in Gander, Nfld., after the airspace over North America was closed following the terrorist attacks that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. 

Richard Evans is the Ottawa-born, Toronto-based associate musical director of the production. For the 59-year-old, the show is not only a chance to visit hometown friends and family, but it’s also a rare opportunity to pick up where he left off before the pandemic. It was a couple of years into a run at the Royal Alexandra theatre in Toronto when COVID-19 became a global health crisis and everything shut down. 

In this interview, the Brookfield High School grad chronicles an earlier attempt to revive the show (only to be foiled by the Omicron variant), the ongoing learning curve associated with playing a certain Irish instrument and how it feels to be part of a musical that keeps people coming back. 

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Here’s the conversation, lightly edited for length: 

Q: This is not your first run with Come From Away, right? 

A: No, I’ve been there since the beginning of the Toronto production. It started in 2017. We rehearsed in Toronto and did a month in Winnipeg, then came back to the Royal Alex and did a couple of years until the pandemic. It closed during pandemic time. 

Q: Wasn’t it remounted at one point? 

A: Yes. We rehearsed it, and opened in 2021, and I think we got to our sixth show and we had an Omicron outbreak on stage. I think 11 of us got COVID at the same time. Then the producers just ended up closing the show. With Omicron and closures and everything, the industry was tanking. It was a really tenuous time. It was a bit of a sad thing because we’d all been counting on having it back because we’d just been through two years of hardship. 

Q: What’s it like being back at it now? 

A: It’s still a great show to play, and it’s fun that we have audiences again. We were rehearsing in a vacuum for, like, five weeks, and now we’re getting some great audiences for the previews. It’s great seeing the reaction. We also have the writer, Irene Sankoff, actually performing in the show in one of the roles in this two-week run. 

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Q: Is there a difference between this show and the national touring one? 

A: It’s pretty similar, but I think there are some changes. We have the turntable on stage, and I think right now our production is the only one in the world that still has a turntable. It’s really part of the stage design of the show. 

Q: What’s the biggest musical challenge for you? 

A: It calls for the conductor to play an Irish button accordion, which I had never done before so that was a learning curve. It still is. I played a bit of regular piano accordion, which is much easier. A button accordion has different notes on the in and out bellows. It’s really a tricky instrument. But I love the Celtic elements. It wasn’t really a world I was that knowledgeable about before, and I’ve certainly gained an appreciation of it. 

Q: Is Ottawa the only city outside Toronto to see this version? 

A: Yes, it is, but we did a concert version in Newfoundland a few years ago. We couldn’t really bring the show in its full form with the set to Newfoundland at that point so it was basically 12 mics on stage and 12 chairs behind them. There was no staging or costumes or anything like that. 

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Q: Did you get to go to Gander and meet the real people? 

A: Yes, we did four shows in Gander at the hockey rink, which is where they had the world’s biggest refrigerator on 9/11 during the actual story. We met the Reals; that’s what they call the real people the stories are based on. I went to the Legion and got screeched in by Buela (Davis) and Oz Fudge. They are beautiful people. They’ve gone all over the world for opening nights of this show, and they will be (in Ottawa) this week, too.

Q: How does it feel to be involved in a show that’s turned into such a phenomenon?

A: I feel lucky that I’ve hit a couple of those types of shows. Mamma Mia! was the same kind of thing, one of those shows that lasted a long time and spoke to a lot of people. A lot of people would go see it numerous times. Those are the really successful musicals, when people want to go more than once. It’s not cheap to go to any show these days, but this one definitely has that kind of appeal across the ages. 

lsaxberg@postmedia.com

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