Back to Gander
Seattle Rep revisits its original world premiere with a new staging that pulls you straight into the heart of the story.
By Sarah Stackhouse December 15, 2025
When you walk into the theater, the cast is already onstage in what looks like a Gander high school gym—setting out dishes for a potluck, chatting, and then cleaning up. It feels like you’ve arrived in the middle of a reunion, which is the point. This run marks 10 years since Come From Away first premiered at Seattle Rep in 2015 before heading off to Broadway and a wave of acclaim. The Rep is using that homecoming energy, and so is the audience. On opening night, when the house was asked who’d seen the show before, about 75% of the sold-out crowd raised their hands.
The musical itself, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, hasn’t changed. It’s still the true story of the 37 planes redirected from U.S. airspace on September 11 and the nearly 7,000 travelers who landed unexpectedly in Gander, Newfoundland, nearly doubling its population. I had never seen the show before, not even the Apple TV version, and I wasn’t sure what angle it would take. This production stays rooted in the people who lived the story, both the “plane people” and the Newfoundlanders who welcomed them, offering food, clothes, phones, and places to sleep.
Director Brandon Ivie remembers being in the audience during that first Seattle run. “I was just blown away. I felt this overwhelming optimism about what we can do as people,” he says. For the anniversary staging, he changes the show so that all the actors play instruments throughout the production, and the guitars, mandolins, hand drums, and accordions pass between cast members, echoing the Newfoundland tradition of kitchen parties—gatherings where people come together to share food and music. At one point, two actors gently lift a guitar over another performer’s head and help her settle into playing it, and the piano is spun around the stage on wheels. “As soon as you put a guitar in someone’s hands, that immediately changes the atmosphere in the room, and it places you around a campfire,” Ivie says. “When I was trying to think about how to approach Come From Away, this seemed like such an obvious way to tell this story that is about community, that is about storytelling, that is about coming together.”
The musical moves fast as the stories overlap and widen while strangers try to make sense of what’s happening to them. A mother waits for word from her son. A couple starts to break down as they each handle the uncertainty in their own way. Two people from different worlds fall in love. A Muslim passenger is viewed with suspicion. Down in the cargo hold, animals wait for whatever help reaches them. I found myself thinking back to a writing class, where we learned that the universal is found through the specific. Come From Away makes that point.
With all the moving pieces, the cast is truly remarkable. Twelve actors shift between islanders, travelers, officials, parents, bus drivers, pilots, and mayors. Costume changes are almost nonexistent; a hat or vest might signal a switch, but the rest happens in their bodies. Sometimes a single performer carries two characters inside one song, and you never lose your place, nor do they.
“I am feeling in my life right now like I need some radical optimism,” Ivie says. “I want to see stories about people coming together. I want to see stories about people helping each other, about people being good to one another.”
The show made me think about how important it is to tell our 9/11 stories, and how each retelling offers something slightly different. We all have our own version of where we were and what we understood or didn’t. Stories let us compare notes. They let us hold something together that none of us could hold alone.
Through the music, Ivie offers a new way in. The instruments become a shorthand for connection, showing us that the story keeps moving because different people pick it up and carry it forward.
Tickets are on sale now, with performances extended through January 4, 2026.
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