Come From Away is a musical about the 7,000 passengers stranded in Gander, NFLD after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The tiny community took in 38 planes of people that day.
To the actors currently in the Royal Alexandra Theatre production in Toronto, the Humboldt Broncos crash engendered a similar showing of kindness and community during a time of tragedy.
That is how Come From Away actors George Masswohl and Cory O’Brien came to be in Humboldt for the May 14 city council meeting to present a cheque for $35,000 to Mayor Rob Muench and the rest of council.
By auctioning off items during eight performances following the April 6 crash, and with the help of some special NHL guests, the Come From Away crew and Mirvish Production raised $35,000 for the Humboldt Broncos Memorial Fund.
The group started their tribute to Humboldt by putting sticks outside the theatre and wearing jerseys on jersey day, which O’Brien provided, says Mosswohl. Many of the jerseys were from Lukan, Ont., the next Kraft Hockeyville community, which O’Brien says was very fitting. However, they wanted to do more.
Masswohl plays Claude Elliott, who was mayor of Gander on Sept. 11, 2001.
One of his common sayings whenever Masswohl sees him is, “Kindness and compassion is free. Doesn’t costs you nothing.” Masswohl says he takes that on.
“It’s not about the money. The money will help, but it’s about the willingness of people to share.”
Many of the items that were up for auction through Mirvish were hockey sticks and jerseys from former NHL players, including those of Bobby Orr, Ken Dryden and Darryl Sittler.
With performances selling out at 1,300 people a night and eight performances, Masswohl says over 10,000 people joined the Come From Away community for Humboldt. And every different audience was into it, he says.
The show is about community, says O’Brien, and a community coming together during a time of great stress and tragedy in a small community. Everyone got behind what the cast and crew wanted to do for Humboldt.
“By having this be part of the end of the show, you could actually feel the audience, the crew, and the cast, everyone felt like a community.”
That was the best thing that came out of something so horrible, was the sense of community and pulling together, says Masswohl.
“This story that we’re sharing is so fitting in a time like this and we’ve created a real culture of community just amongst ourselves. We are a little town and so we’ve pulled together to do things and we take that forward with us.”
It was art mirroring life, says O’Brien.
