Review: 9/11 MUSICAL COME FROM AWAY CELEBRATES KINDNESS OF SMALL COMMUNITY at Straz Center For The Performing Arts

Unless you were a very young child protected from the brutal images on the TV screen, most can remember where they were on September 11, 2001 when our country became acutely aware of how airplanes under terrorist control were leveraged as deadly history-creating bombs.

Now imagine if you were a passenger on an airplane flying to America and finding yourself diverted to a small town in Newfoundland with no knowledge of why.

Gander, the tiny Newfoundland town, found itself unexpectedly hosting hundreds of planes and 7,000 stranded passengers and pets who'd been diverted from American air space to its community of only 9,000, doubling its population overnight.

To say this small town and its surrounding communities welcomed the crew and passengers of nearly 100 different countries is an underwhelming statement. For all intents and purposes, the town shut down to accommodate the "plane people," as they were dubbed. Accommodations, transportation, medicine, food, pet care, cell phone and computers with internet were provided to the unanticipated guests without expectation of payment.

The kindness shown in those days inspired the Tony-award winning Broadway musical Come From Away.

Playing at the Straz Center June 4-9, this Canadian-born production, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and directed by Christopher Ashley is an emotional roller coaster. A comedy, drama, romance, tearjerker, it shows how a little town with a huge heart never hesitated to provide refuge for frightened strangers - many whose foreign language left them without a way to communicate, but kindness transcended language.

The stage was sparse - tall trees, wooden chairs, tables, a brick wall that also became a room entrance and the bottom door of an airplane, and the musicians were hidden left and right stage. A lavish set was not needed to tell the heart-warming story.

The dozen actors of all ages and ethnicities in multiple roles in this sung-and-spoken musical transformed from citizens of Gander to "plane people" with a seamless removal of a hat, an addition of a jacket, a mustache and switch of an accent. The vocals were absolutely outstanding and dance numbers energetic and fun.

While the show has special moments like a fearful gay couple accepted by the community and a black man feeling completely safe, it also tackled the mistrust the passengers had of an innocent Muslim passenger and showed the prejudice he faced - a timely lesson.

After experiencing Come From Away, I left the theatre 100 intermission-free minutes later absolutely feeling lighter than when I went in. Come From Away shows a community banding together to help strangers without hesitation. Maybe it's just the time in which we are living in now, but my thoughts wandered to the question that if, God forbid, history repeated, if this happened in international air space and planes filled with foreigners were diverted to America, would we act the same? I can only that we would.