Theatre Tulsa: Come From Away
Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Liddy Doenges Theatre
November 7, 2026
In Gander, Newfoundland, the days immediately following September 11, 2001 felt as surreal as they did in New York City, but for an entirely different reason. After two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, dozens of flights entering American airspace were diverted to the international airport in Gander, a small Canadian town whose barely 10,000 residents banded together to welcome thousands of international passengers. It’s an almost impossibly heartwarming, hopeful story, one that would end up to become the hit Broadway musical Come From Away, which Theatre Tulsa staged this past weekend with aplomb.
Wife-and-husband writing duo Irene Sankoff and David Hein sought to be as true to history as possible. When the 10th anniversary of 9/11 rolled around, they made a trip to Gander. Over the span of a month-long stay, they received that infamous Gander hospitality as residents opened their homes and shared their stories. These storytellers were the individuals who ended up appearing in the musical, people like Bonnie, the director of the local SPCA, who searched the hulls of the planes to deliver care to the pets on board; Diane and Nick, two passengers from different countries who ended up falling in love; and Beverly, the first female captain of a commercial American Airlines plane and one of several who made an emergency stop in Gander.
As the musical makes clear, welcoming so many people from different walks of life wasn’t exclusively a feel-good situation. Kevin T. and Kevin J. are apprehensive about how open the townspeople are to the LGBTQ+ community. Muhumuza, an African man, fearfully tries to understand the situation without knowing English. Hannah waits by the phone, anxious for news about her son, a NYC firefighter. And Egyptian chef Ali is the target of budding fear-fueled Islamophobia. While not every story receives an explicit happy ending, Gander’s hospitality meant every visitor returned home with a new friend, as illustrated beautifully in the musical’s penultimate song “Something’s Missing.”
Vern Stefanic directed this production with a strong grasp on the musical’s pacing, ensuring all jokes landed and emotional moments resonated. With purposeful choreography by Kaley Jobe that guided the viewer’s eye right to the key action in some big musical numbers and a textured lighting design by Mal Lindsay that sharply isolated parts of the stage in a way I didn’t think possible in the Liddy, I didn’t have to think very hard about what I was watching. As songs shifted into scenes and back again, I felt comfortable putting my trust in this creative team to carry me through the story.
A seasoned ensemble made for a wealth of strong performances. Nash McQuarters never failed to make me laugh as jaded New Yorker Bob, and I was continuously impressed with Mike Minnick’s protean morphing among his four characters. Colten Hall and Robert Young had great rapport as Kevin J. and Kevin T., and any time Young stepped in to narrate the story, I found myself leaning in.