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[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey listeners! When I moved to the island of Maui almost two years ago, I became pretty instantly aware of and honestly embarrassed by how little Pali or Pacific Islander representation there is in the popular canon of musical theatre. Here is this like so-called American art form. Hawaii is one of the United States of America and has this beautiful culture full of musical storytelling, and yet like there's nada. There's nothing. And the horn I've been blowing ever since is that the musical closest to representing life on Maui is probably In the Heights. It's about community and gentrification and that really is a central story of the island. Unfortunately, I now have another musical I can add to that list.

A little over a month ago, wildfires devastated many parts of Maui, including historic Lahaina Town. Many lives were lost. An unfathomable amount of homes were destroyed, and the economic fallout has been widespread and intense. And through all of that, the spirit that the people of Maui have shown has reminded me of another show about an island during a time of crisis, Come From Away. So today, we are re-releasing our Come From Away episode from back in 2020 with original cast member Geno Carr. It's newly edited and will include an intro and outro with my current guest. She is a Maui girl, born and raised, who lived in New York working and studying and ultimately graduating with a musical theatre degree from AMDA, American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

Since then, she has returned to Maui where she has starred in and directed many productions. Most recently, she served as Assistant Artistic Director at Maui Academy of Performing Arts and has been featured in a couple of films. The Wind and the Reckoning was one I saw earlier this year. It's a beautiful story, terrific cast. Everyone, please welcome Hōkū Pavao. Yay! Aloha, Hōkū, and welcome to A Musical Theatre Podcast. Aloha kakaiaka or good morning.

[2:15] Hōkū Pavao: Oh my gosh, right? And we can feel the fog, as you were saying. I had lots of tea this morning, warming things up, lubricating.

[2:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much for being here.

[2:30] Hōkū Pavao: Thank you. So, first of all, I want to check in emotionally. How are you? Because it's been almost a month since the fires. How are you feeling? You're connected to this land that I know much more than I am and with that connection comes a great deal of mourning.

[2:44] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm still, I think, like most people here, shifting through. I live in Wailuku, so Lahaina and Kula both were taken. You know, a lot of the Aina was taken. Well, the Aina is still there.

[3:03] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, for sure. The buildings, the buildings were taken and people lost homes and unfortunately lives as well. And I think I'm still shifting through that. I think, surprise, surprise, I'm an empath, a musical theatre person. What? And so I know taking a lot of it on is, I'm taking them, I'm taking it in doses because I know, I know myself and I know what taking it all on could do to me. And so I'm still sifting through and slowly dipping my waters in, my waters, my toes in the waters in a couple of different places. But I can definitely feel, there's a silence almost that I feel. And in Hawaii, we call this mana, right? There's a, there's a vibrancy. New York had it. I think that's why I was drawn to New York is there's this energy and I feel a silence now as everybody is figuring out how to, how to move forward, how to move forward, how to move forward, but with intention of the unfortunate opportunity we have as a culture to come back to our Aina, to come back to our place, to come back to, especially in Lahaina, there's a huge movement to come back to what Lahaina was.

[4:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's beautiful. I immediately thought of one of the big things from Come From Away, which is that prayer that what we found was greater than what we lost. And I think that, I mean, it almost, I don't even know if I should say this, but sometimes the privilege of going through something like this is that it is a teacher. And Maui has always been the greatest teacher to me from the moment I landed. And so in many ways, I feel like of course this would happen here because what greater wisdom could the island give us than to go through this?

[5:12] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah. Because Hawaii, most Polynesian cultures, a lot of indigenous cultures, right? We are connected to our land because our land is like another family member, right? It's not separate. It's not something we own. It's something that we have the privilege of taking care of. And it in turn takes care of us.

[5:40] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah. And so within that, we are also connected to every single person. And so the helpers in this devastation, everyone was a helper, no matter who you knew, where you're from, if you were from Lahaina, which is in Wailuku, for Maui people, Lahaina is like a track, right?

[5:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Might as well be on the other side of the world.

[5:59] Hōkū Pavao: Yes. It's 30 minutes away. Goodness gracious. But whether you knew somebody there or not, you felt connected to that, to those people and just wanted to help. And goodness, there was so much help. Almost too much.

[6:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. We will definitely talk about that. The fires have really brought, I think, a new global awareness to the complexities of Maui and probably Hawaii in general, which we'll touch on here, but we'll explore much more in our Patreon episode that Hōkū will also be on. But it's also brought awareness to what makes this place special. So I was wondering if you could speak on that and maybe specifically, what does the spirit of Aloha mean?

[6:39] Hōkū Pavao: I love this question because I think it was about five years ago, I was informed, didn't know this, that Aloha, there is an actual Aloha state law.

[6:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh.

[6:54] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah. And so within it, it spells out, and it's mostly a guidance for our officials to remember who they are and who they serve and the place they serve.

[7:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Take that, Florida. Sorry.

[7:10] Hōkū Pavao: No, but yes.

[7:12] Hōkū Pavao: Yes. And so the definition of Aloha spirit state law is, Aloha spirit is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. In the contemplation and the presence of the life force Aloha, the following Anuhi Laula Loa may be used. And so they've broken it down kind of like in an acronym and broken down Aloha. And Akahi for A, meaning kindness to be expressed with tenderness. Lokahi, meaning unity to be expressed with harmony. Oluolu, meaning agreeable to be expressed with pleasantness. Oh, right.

[7:58] Hōkū Pavao: Meaning humility to be expressed with modesty. And Ohunui, meaning patience to be expressed with perseverance. Which one is one of my favorites, because that idea of where we are right now is we're waiting and seeing, we're waiting and seeing, we're not trying to... There's so much we don't know, right?

[8:19] Hōkū Pavao: There's so much we don't know. And I think our government officials in the need and want to help just like the everyday person is trying to fast track so many things. And when I went and looked at this again, I went, Oh gosh, it doesn't all have to happen right now. We have the opportunity, the unfortunate opportunity to have the conversations and figure out intentionally where we want to go as a community. This is presented at this time.

[8:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, this is so cool. This is so cool because it expresses a lot of the frustrations I've had with the media covering this whole thing. With the intention, you see the intention that they're trying to stick up for the people of Maui and demand answers. But then you see the law that the officials are trying to live by.

[9:08] Hōkū Pavao: Yes. And it's one of those things, it's like such... This devastation is huge. And I feel such grace for our officials who are trying their best with the knowledge they have to be there for their people. And I have to, in good faith, believe that in my heart. And I think that's where some of the animosity comes from, because even as I watch Lahaina, the Lahaina community speak for itself and start to ask for things, they are practicing patience and perseverance. Saying, Hey, kind of like Mauna Kea, it started as a whisper. It's like, No, we're trying to say something. This is kind of the Aloha spirit to me. It's like, No, I don't need to yell for you to be heard. I'm trying to say something.

[10:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mauna Kea, for those who don't know.

[10:06] Hōkū Pavao: Oh, Mauna Kea. So there was the movement, for those who didn't know, on Mauna Kea, they wanted to build a telescope. And Mauna Kea is considered sacred to the Hawaiian people. It's a volcano. And so it started as a whisper. And we got lots of traction back then, too, about the We Are Mauna Kea, and the whole world was watching. It's interesting now that I'm thinking about it. Here is another on one of our other islands. And now the whole world is watching, too. And showing that we as a people will stand up for ourselves. And we may start at a whisper, but that whisper will trickle around the world.

[10:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. As you're talking, I'm realizing that when this all went down, you were one of the first people I saw, I think in the community, because it all went down on like a Tuesday. And then Wednesday morning, I saw you and we're like, What do we do? And you had already reached out to like the greater theater community on the island to let them know that they had space to rest and to sleep if they needed it and all of which was beautiful and inspiring. But then by the end of that Wednesday, there had been shelters created. The biggest one at War Memorial Stadium, which is kind of a well, how would you describe that? It's like a like a sports complex.

[11:28] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, it's a basketball court.

[11:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sports complex. And then your husband oversees the YMCA. So that was also turned into a shelter, my church was turned into a shelter, and then like everybody just went to work. And I remember going into my church for the first time. And it like speaking of humbling, to walk into the church and see like pews where I have struggled to stay awake. Now being used as beds for people trying to sleep. That was crazy. And, and I immediately like burst into tears and then like went to the corner and was like, get a hold of yourself, Parsons, this is not the time you do not need all of these people comforting you, you know.

[12:20] Hōkū Pavao: So I also going back to what you said about dipping your toe in the water, I don't think I've I don't think I've processed much either, because I think we just went to work. Right?

[12:31] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, I agree. I remember, yeah, both you and I are like, Well, I don't think we're gonna come in tomorrow morning, because I'm gonna go to my church and I'm gonna serve and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna be at the war memorial. And I'm gonna serve because right now that's where we're needed.

[12:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And I think so many people answered that call. You know, it was so beautiful to watch. And it because you know, government officials have red tape, they have to go through and, and the community said, that's fine. While you're doing that, we'll take care of this.

[13:01] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah. And so my husband at the YMCA had started, you know, through the YMCA, collecting a list of houses that could be used to short term at the time, house any displaced families, just so they had a home. And he arrived at the war memorial. And he said, Hey, these 25 homes, who can I give this to? And they said, you know what, this is so great. We don't have anybody to handle this. And so like almost everything that week, people went cool. Okay, there's a need.

[13:34] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, there's a need. And so he called me, you know, he called me and a couple of our friends, and we just started going around cot to cot, talking to people, asking them if they were in need of anything, including homes, collecting information. And the thing that was incredible to me, was looking around at something that can be completely devastating, right? Not completely can be was was, yeah, was completely devastating. And watching people in a shared experience, find hope, and joy and laughter, all mashed up against each other, all mashed up and asking how they could be there for each other. Even though they were experiencing whatever they were experiencing. I there was Oh, there was a gentleman there. And he I remember we were sitting at one end of the complex, and we had made our own space inside and he was bandaged from head to toe. He had obviously been burned in some way. And he was sitting.

[14:34] Geno Carr: Cracking jokes with his cot neighbor, you know, waiting to be seen by one of the nurses who were inundated with their own things, you know. And so watching and looking, you know, look for the helpers. Anywhere you looked, there was a helper, including those who had been affected themselves. Okay, we are going to now turn the episode over to our conversation about COME FROM AWAY. Please enjoy, and we will see you, we'll talk to you after it's over.

[15:18] Geno Carr: Have you ever been to Newfoundland? Yeah, so the producers took the original cast, the original Broadway cast, before we did our pre-Broadway run in Toronto. We flew up and made a stop in Newfoundland. And I have to tell you, that's how it's pronounced, Newfoundland. Newfoundland. Yeah, like understand Newfoundland. Oh, you get in big trouble if you say it wrong, rightfully so. But it's often mispronounced. Yeah, so we got to give them this gift of the show that we've been working on, hoping to say thank you in a way to say, is this okay? Do we sort of have your blessing? And did you do the show for them?

[15:55] Geno Carr: I wish we could have done the full blown skit. But unfortunately, as you may or may not know, Gander, Newfoundland is not a huge town. Nowhere in Newfoundland is considered actually a huge town. So there are no facilities that could house a full production. Certainly not our production. So what we did was a really cool concert version. And we performed it in their ice hockey arena, in the Steel Community Center. Yeah, which is pretty crazy. We talk about it in the show. And they literally became rock concerts. It was insane. Everyone who's anyone in Newfoundland and beyond came and got to hear their stories and their friends' stories and the stories of their people and their culture and their region told.

And we all went into it going, you know, we've done the show, you know, in other cities, and we're comfortable with it. And we're going to be able to keep it together. And we're going to be strong. And then as soon as the first drumbeat happened, our show starts with like a dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, you know, everyone in the audience starts screaming. And throughout the whole, whole performance, they're screaming back and laughing at things and loving it. And we're bawling. We're trying so hard to keep it together. And we are failing miserably. At the end of the concert, we're all just hoarse because we've just been screaming over these people. This kind of journey that our show took, and the way the show was constructed and the way the show was produced and the way our journey was to Broadway and all of those things. It's the most unique experience any actor could ever have. It's incredible.

[17:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. Today we are talking Come From Away with Mr. Gino Carr. Hey, Gino.

[17:49] Gino Carr: It's me. Hi, how are you?

[17:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm so grateful you're here. I'm actually really excited to talk about the show, but this episode also marks two firsts for the podcast. Number one, we are recording a special evening edition. And that is because...

[18:08] Gino Carr: Oh, yeah, I'm going to explain. Yes. Because I have a four and a half year old. And this is the time of night, the late hours, the witching hours where he actually generally goes to sleep and is quiet for once. So that's why we're recording at night. I'm recording in a lovely closet. Yeah, that's why we're doing this sultry evening podcast.

[18:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which brings me to the second first. You're the first dad we've had on the show.

[18:33] Gino Carr: Are you kidding me?

[18:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, we've had all these single gay people.

[18:40] Gino Carr: Well, I'm neither single nor gay, so I guess knock both those off the shelf.

[18:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. Right?

[18:45] Gino Carr: My gosh. Congratulations, Gino. I'm really proud of you.

[18:48] Gino Carr: I feel like a unicorn. Thank you.

[18:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So if he's four and a half and Come From Away opened on Broadway in 2017, of which you are an original cast member.

[19:00] Gino Carr: Yep.

[19:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Does that mean you kind of had two babies at the same time?

[19:04] Gino Carr: Well, it gets even stranger than that. Let's rewind even further. Get ready for this.

[19:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[19:09] Gino Carr: Today marks five years since the first day of rehearsals at La Jolla Playhouse for the world premiere of Come From Away. Isn't that crazy? Elliot was in utero at this point. He would be born in August. So he was jumping and kicking to the show before he was out of the womb opening night. Nancy has all these memories of him just dancing along inside her to Come From Away. So he's been, as you said, I've had two babies. Literally, he and the Come From Away experience are so intertwined that it's almost hard sometimes to separate them at all and think about them as two different parts of my life. It's just he and Come From Away are my babies.

[19:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And did it just start out with an appointment at an audition?

[19:56] Gino Carr: Yeah. So San Diego is a much smaller market than, say, New York and some of the other markets. So for the most part, if you've been working in this city for any amount of time, you can still go into open calls, but a lot of times you were just sort of called in for callbacks or sent out feelers for would you be interested in being seen for this? And La Jolla Playhouse, I'd been in several times for projects and just nothing ever clicked. I went in for this and thought, okay, I don't really know what this show is. I read it and I had the synopsis and thought, okay, it's a new musical, great artistic team. I would love to go in and be seen. So I went in, did the audition. I spent about, I think, 10 or 12 minutes in the room by myself, which was great, and went through every song in my book, every song inside.

They had sent me multiple dialects. Go back and try it this way, try this faster. Now go back and sing that song from your book. Do you have anything that's contemporary? What about something that's more of a ballad? It was one of these auditions where I didn't have time to get nervous because I was so busy jumping through these kind of hoops, which was something I'd never done before to that extent. And that was my only audition. It was 10 minutes in the room with Chris Ashley and a camera, and the rest of the artistic team, the producers, the writers all saw me on video.

[21:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're kidding me.

[21:14] Gino Carr: This does not happen. It was just one of those right place, right time, right situation. Everything worked out. So I had one audition. I booked the show, and then that was as far as we knew. But then I got a phone call from Chris Ashley two months later and said, do you want to come back with us and go on the journey? I know you have your wife and your son, Elliot, and you have a life there, but we'd love to have you come back and join us. So I didn't have to re-audition. I got invited to do DC and Toronto and make my Broadway debut. So I won the lottery about 10 times over.

[21:46] Gino Carr: You know, right now we're looking at, I don't know what the future of theater, the near future of theater looks like. But what I do know is that we probably wouldn't have Come From Away as a Broadway experience if it hadn't been such a huge success in San Diego, La Jolla, and then in Seattle. These regional houses and the people who go and support them by buying tickets and attending their shows are largely responsible for the huge outreach that these shows can have once they make it to New York. So never think that by simply going to your regional theater, are you any less of a theater goer than those that go to New York. In fact, you might be dictating what ends up in New York.

[22:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's so much great theater. Again, whether it goes to New York, whether it's a huge success financially, the idea of art is to express something and hopefully allow others to experience that and have their own connection to it. And sometimes you get that great nexus where art and commercial viability come together. But the thing that you want is to be in a room with people telling great stories in an interesting way and connecting with people. Let's talk about one of those great communal experiences, which is this show, Come From Away. It was written, music and lyrics, and book by a husband and wife team known as Irene Sankoff and David Hein.

[23:17] Gino Carr: Yes?

[23:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's correct. And how would you describe them as a couple?

[23:22] Gino Carr: They're amazing people. They are both actors as well. They started off performing and starting to write their own stuff. They came from different parts of Canada. She's more of a city girl from Toronto. David was from Saskatchewan, which is more of a woodsy province. So they both had different sensibilities coming together. I mean, she went to grad school in New York. They were both in New York during 9-11 as a couple. So they have this amazing relationship. And they will joke about this as well, that the fact that they can work together and still stay married. And they would always say they tried to have those rules of, when we get home, we're not going to talk about the show. We're just going to save that for our work times.

And invariably, brushing teeth, like, what do you think about that? I think that song is bad. We need to change those lyrics. But luckily, they're still going strong and they're still doing well. But they are wonderful in so many ways. They especially are open to shaping things to get in the room with them. And they were in the room every rehearsal process that we had in all the different cities, making changes and being part of it. Because we had four out-of-towns, which is very unusual for a commercial run. We did La Jolla and Seattle and D.C. and Toronto. So we had very different geographical locations, very different sensibilities, different people's relationships to the events of 9-11, depending on those different cities was very different. And they were able to take all that information and sort of create and continue to shape this piece.

[24:54] Gino Carr: In 2009, they wrote a musical called My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding.

[25:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[25:01] Gino Carr: And that was really the only thing, the only musical they wrote before Come From Away, which is crazy. But from that, a college dean had seen their work and thought that they might be a good duo to musicalize the true story of the city of Gander. Now, can you tell me a little bit about Gander, where it is and what is special about it geographically?

[25:28] Gino Carr: So Gander, Newfoundland. So a bit of history, abridged history on Gander. It is in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, northeast tip of North America. It's as far north and east as you can go before you hop across the Atlantic to Europe. And what was special about Gander in particular and continues to be is they have a big airport. And they had that originally because back in the old days, planes couldn't necessarily go all the way across transatlantic travel without refueling. So often flights, military as well as commercial, would stop from the US in Gander, refuel, and then make their journey across to Europe and vice versa. So it became a very important hub for transatlantic travel.

And then, of course, we fast forward in the jet engines and fuel economy and things like that. Gander was no longer as vital of a hub, but it still had this huge international airport. It's a small town. It's a small province. It's a small island. I mean, everything about it is, nothing about it is big city. So it's a culture of taking care of each other, partly out of just necessity of there aren't that many other people. There aren't that many other resources. It's a place where kindness and generosity was just bred into them for generations. And it ended up being an extraordinarily important sort of collective character trait when 9-11 happened. And all of these flights that were heading across the Atlantic back to North America were either diverted back to Europe if they hadn't hit the halfway point of the Atlantic, or they were diverted to Canada because the FAA said we're shutting down US airspace.

No one comes in. So if they had enough fuel, they turned around and went back to Europe, but everyone else had to make their way to a couple, a handful of airports in Canada where everyone was grounded. And then they just, they drained the sky and Gander, again, being a very small airport, they said at that point in that time in 2001, they would have generally about six flights a day that would come through. And on this day, they had 38 commercial jetliners land.

[27:43] Gino Carr: Wow. There's a whole thing in our show, 38, 38, 38 planes, because it's a lot of planes. Now for most airports, that's not a big deal. For most cities, you're like, well, that comes in a couple hours in Atlanta or in New York. But remember six flights a day coming through and then 38 commercial jetliners with hundreds, thousands of passengers on them. Their population doubled in the course of a day. And they had to then not only say here, you can land here. Then they have to say, well, we have to get you off of these planes. We have to get you taken care of, food, shelter, love, compassion. So the sort of geographical, as well as social generosity that was bred into them and became so much of their natural human kindness was so important because there's a lot of people who were very scared that landed there that day and had no idea what was going on. And they ended up landing in this incredible love nest of Gander, Newfoundland.

[28:42] Gino Carr: So just to review the numbers, the city was about 9,000. And then on 9-11.

[28:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: About 16,000 people is what they sort of say.

[28:52] Gino Carr: Gander was not built for that. They didn't have the infrastructure, resources. You know, the character that I played in Come From Away, my primary character was Oz Fudge, who was one of the town police officers, a constable. And they had two police officers in Gander.

[29:09] Geno Carr: Total. Wow. Yeah. Now, this beautiful experience was commemorated with a 10-year reunion. So in 2011, Irene and David, the composers, writing duo, go to this reunion and interview as many people as they can. And in interviewing everyone, they have almost too much material. And so then it seems to me that the process of creating this musical was just narrowing down what information are we going to use to tell this story. One of the things that I think is really smart about the way that this show is constructed, and it kind of sounds like a backhanded compliment, but the score feels to me like it just gets out of the way of the story. It doesn't mean it's not exciting. It doesn't mean that it's not pleasing to listen to.

On the contrary, it's thrilling, and it has that heartbeat of these Celtic rhythms and all of you incredible performers, which, you know, sound amazing up there. And yet there are very few places to applaud, very few quote unquote songs with a beginning and end. It's this very theatrical magic trick that just keeps going and constantly spitting out information from just a handful of people on stage playing essentially 16,000 people. Yeah, it's kind of magical, right? I mean, and it was so purposefully done. Throughout the course of the development of the show, there were other numbers that had, you know, buttons and applause breaks, and we sort of kept trimming them away. And, you know, there was talk about, well, there should be an intermission if it's going to be on Broadway, we got to sell concessions.

And, you know, it was absolutely not. The people in Gander couldn't leave. This audience needs to be sort of feel that same containment. I love that. And it came from the writing team, the producers. I mean, it was never a battle for, you know, commercial profits for this, which was great. So yeah, the whole thing was incredibly deliberate and so artfully shaped.

[31:14] Hōkū Pavao: Isn't that that's so cool, because it's just dripping with empathy. And yet, and yet to hear that it was so intelligently and analytically put together, makes my OCD heart really happy.

[31:28] Geno Carr: It made mine as well. I mean, you know, the show, when you watch it, it's simple storytelling. It's just 12 actors, three tables, 13 chairs, but the precision of what had to happen is also incredibly complex. So you guys end up on Broadway by I think, is it March of 2017?

[31:48] Geno Carr: Yeah, yeah, we officially opened March 12, 2017.

[31:51] Hōkū Pavao: And I mean, you're a hit.

[31:53] Geno Carr: Yeah, big time.

[31:55] Hōkū Pavao: You are nominated for many, many Tony Awards as a show. Chris Ashley, your director wins for your best director. Is there anything you want to share about the whole Tony Awards experience?

[32:06] Geno Carr: That was your first time going through it.

[32:09] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, I mean, what do you I mean, the Tony Awards, it's just one of those, the chaos of backstage is unimaginable to people watching at home. But then as soon as that, you know, the big LEDs, I say the curtain goes up, but it wasn't it was like a big screen of TVs and, you know, LED stuff that go up this huge, expensive wall. But then once that happens, you're just you're just doing your show again. And you're just with those same people telling that same story. So it was incredibly comfortable in a way. And it also, it still doesn't seem real. It seems like one of those actor fantasies. You wake up in the morning. Oh, that would have been great if that happened. But it did happen. I got to, you know, to be there and do that.

And we didn't win as many Tonys as we had, you know, of course, hoped. It was a very, very tight. There were 13 new musicals in our Tony season. I remember being so happy when you guys won Best Director, though, because I felt like it was such a great representation for what made your show so special. For you guys to win a bunch of disparate awards that, you know, lighting here, choreography there, whatever. But for it to all kind of rest in Christopher Ashley's hands, literally that award felt like such a great symbol of what made your show special that season.

[33:27] Geno Carr: Yeah, he certainly shepherded, shepherded, yeah, shepherded this show. What's great about Chris is he's an incredible artist and an empathetic human. But he also studied math. So he's a mathematician. And one of the great strengths that he brought to the show was that, you know, if we do this here plus that, we're going to get this. It was artistic math, mathematics. But for Chris to win the Tony for that, it was extraordinarily special for us just because we had been on this journey with him for so long and knew how much heart and how much brain he put into it and how, you know, generous he was with us and how kind.

[34:07] Hōkū Pavao: So great. The show's a hit. And I mean, it was running up until coronavirus. So that's been three years now, over three years of sold out crowds on the Broadway. What I'm also really grateful for is you guys put together a kick butt original cast album that you can just put on from track one and listen to the whole show and experience the show.

[34:26] Geno Carr: Yeah. Did you guys have to basically kind of rewrite the show in order to turn it into an album?

[34:38] Geno Carr: We had eight hours in the studio to record the entire cast recording. Which is saying not enough time, especially considering that all 12 of us were there for basically all eight hours. There are very few solo duets without some sort of a choral, you know, support system to them. So it was an exhausting eight hours. But the amount of work that the team put into it to create that cohesion and to make sure that it, as you said, you can put it on and listen to it and know what's happening and get the idea behind it was so important. And we were so grateful that they did all that work because, you know, it was hard work, but when we got in there, we knew what we were doing and we knew we had a great representation of our show.

[35:21] Hōkū Pavao: If there's anybody out there who hasn't seen the show or who doesn't know about it, I really recommend you checking out the cast album and just kind of experiencing it because not only is it great, but it's incredibly relevant to right now. And when I took a second to reacquaint myself with it and study it over the past week or so, I really found a lot. Now, if you haven't already picked up on this, the show happens on 9-11. And I wanted to ask you what you were doing on 9-11.

[35:56] Geno Carr: We were actually in D.C., another, of course, horrible place to be that day, rehearsing for the national tour of the Buddy Holly story. So all of these New Yorkers were transplanted down to D.C. and are kind of stuck there during this time of tragedy. And we were set to fly out on September 13th to Anchorage, Alaska, to go tech the show. And we got pushed back a little bit there. But it was, of course, for everyone an intense time. But for all of us being New Yorkers, but then also being in D.C., but being together, it was just sort of this incredible support system.

[36:33] Hōkū Pavao: I've said on the podcast before, I've talked about what I was doing at 9-11. I was an LDS missionary at the time. So I was already in kind of like this high-entropy experience. It's new every day. And you're constantly meeting people. And you're in weird situations that make you uncomfortable. And you're just being like, all right, let's do it. There's that. But also, there's a complete lack of media in your life. You're not watching TV. You're not reading the newspaper. It's actually kind of against the rules. So 9-11 is actually a very... It's an experience that I don't have a lot of visceral emotional reactions to. Not like a lot of other people. And so honestly, the way that I'm able to emotionally process that experience is through pieces like this. Because it lets me in a lot on what I wasn't aware of was happening at the time. And I was wondering if this experience has helped you process that time in a different way than, say, for me.

[37:35] Geno Carr: Yeah, absolutely. Having been more directly affected, as you said, viscerally by the events. It's a wound. There is a wound there that continues. But what was so amazing about Come From Away and, of course, the stories it's based on, was that against this backdrop of these terrible events, this darkest visage of humanity, there is this goodness, this hope that was there as well. Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers. That was something that David and Irene always said is something that drove them in this piece was, this story is about the helpers. These are people who were willing to help no matter what. And that's just how they were programmed. And to them, it wasn't a big deal. But to the vast majority of the rest of us, it was a huge deal.

[38:23] Hōkū Pavao: What I would love to do, usually in the show, we go through the whole plot. That is a little impossible for me to do, at least with this show, because there is so much story. And because so much of the writing is literally just someone spitting out information to you. That instead, I would like to go through with you and talk about the characters, about some of the main people that we meet through these stories. So in the town, in the show, we have the mayor who, much like a small town mayor, probably had no idea what he was signing up for when this happened. But God bless him. And at his side is Officer Oz, who was played by you, of course. I know that his name's Oz, but I just would rather refer to you as Officer STFD. I feel like that's a better title, right?

[39:16] Geno Carr: I think that's sort of what everyone calls Oz at this point. The joke of the show, or it's right at the beginning of the show, actually. It's the first sort of speech that Oz has. It's one of the first big insights into these people. Things are happening, but they're also really funny. And the show is going to be a fun ride, as well as a cathartic ride. So it was a great way to find that balance, is this opening speech that Oz has. And the vast majority of what's in the show is verbatim, if not very close to verbatim. And this is something that Oz would do. He would pull people over. And instead of giving a ticket, he gives them a warning ticket. And on the ticket, he would just write, STFD.

And so for the first chunk of time, people were just like, I don't know what this means. Do I owe you money? What does this mean? He goes, no, slow the **** down. And then it became a bit of a regional joke. And then once the show hit, it became a much bigger regional joke. And you couldn't write them anymore.

[40:25] Hōkū Pavao: That's fantastic.

[40:25] Geno Carr: I don't know how I didn't mention this yet. I was so bogged down in the pathos of this show. It's freaking hilarious.

[40:30] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, it's a very funny show.

[40:34] Geno Carr: I laughed out loud several times, full belly laugh.

[40:38] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, it's very funny. Okay, also in the town, you got Beulah.

[40:42] Geno Carr: How can you not love Beulah?

[40:44] Hōkū Pavao: I know. Right? She works at the Academy?

[40:47] Geno Carr: Gander Academy, yep. And she also has an assistant. I forget her name. It starts with an A.

[40:53] Hōkū Pavao: Oh, Annette.

[40:54] Geno Carr: Annette, well done. It's like you've done the show for a couple of years.

[40:57] Hōkū Pavao: I only did it 1,200 times. You've also got Bonnie.

[41:02] Geno Carr: Bonnie works with all the animals.

[41:04] Hōkū Pavao: At the SPCA, yep. What does that stand for?

[41:07] Geno Carr: Society for the Preservation...

[41:09] Hōkū Pavao: Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals.

[41:11] Geno Carr: Cruelty Against Animals, there you go. Yep. Boom. You knew it, see? I doubted myself. So those are some of my favorites of the town. Now, they are all living their lives, right? Until they hear that all of these planes are landing and they have all of these people to take care of. And of course, what I do love about the show is that it makes sure to give time to the nuance of the situation. There were people in town who were like, why do they have to come here? Why can't they go to Toronto, where they could actually be absorbed? And I love that quote when the mayor says, well, if anything goes wrong here, we've got a lot less people to lose. Because at this point, every plane was being considered a bomb.

[41:49] Hōkū Pavao: Right.

[41:49] Geno Carr: So let's send them all to Gander, I guess. There's a lot of empty space. Yep. And just kind of the starkness of that realization, but also being willing to laugh at it, is 100% come from away from me.

[42:01] Hōkū Pavao: Yep. Now we have all of these people in the plane and you guys are also playing these people from all over the world who are trapped on these airplanes, right?

[42:06] Geno Carr: Up to 28 hours on these planes without being able to leave.

[42:13] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, I mean, some of them had taken off from Europe and by the time they circled for a while and then were set down and then they had to wait to get all the security in place to, as you said, make sure that people weren't carrying bombs or bringing venom out of the plane. So there were some people who were on planes for 28 hours straight.

[42:30] Geno Carr: Crazy.

[42:31] Hōkū Pavao: There's this hilarious montage about what do you do on a plane for 28 hours? You watch every movie they have on there.

[42:36] Geno Carr: I think they break out the booze pretty early on.

[42:42] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah, I got to play a drunk guy on the plane. It was great.

[42:44] Geno Carr: Fantastic. Some of my favorite characters on the plane include Kevin and Kevin, obviously.

[42:51] Hōkū Pavao: Of course.

[42:53] Geno Carr: Kevin and Kevin are boyfriends. They're both named Kevin, which you know is always, it's a recipe for disaster. Never date somebody that has your same name. You're like, you think it's going to be cute on Instagram. Just don't do it. It's not. It's never cute. But they're also really great characters trying to figure out, okay, we've landed in this small town. Do we tell people we're gay? Are we going to get gay bashed? What's going to happen? They end up having a really, actually two very different experiences. One who kind of embraces the generosity and love of this town. The other one who really is, I think, grieving in a way that doesn't allow him to do so.

[43:33] Hōkū Pavao: Yes, I agree. Yep, absolutely. But it is kind of cute that when they finally do let it slip that they're together, all of these people in the town start talking about how they know people who are gay.

[43:45] Geno Carr: There's this great line where he says, wow, somehow we found the gayest town in Newfoundland. Must be something in the water. And then one of the locals says, that's why I only drink beer. That's why I only drink beer. It's one of the funniest little scenes in the whole show. I love being in that scene. So great.

[44:01] Geno Carr: Then we have Hannah. Hannah is a character who received a new song right before he went to Broadway, right?

[44:08] Jeff Parsons: That's right. And she has a son who is a firefighter?

[44:14] Geno Carr: A New York City firefighter.

[44:15] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. And she's obviously incredibly worried about him. One thing that I always forget is that there was a life before cell phones.

[44:23] Geno Carr: Yeah. One of the big points of the show is that everybody wants to call their loved one, but people didn't have cell phones. So it was, how do we even make contact with the world? And now what's fascinating is that in this pandemic, in this kind of crisis that we're facing, all we have now is our phones. It's just like a complete 180.

[44:45] Geno Carr: One of the people that is for sure 100% true is Beverly Bass.

[44:49] Jeff Parsons: Correct.

[44:50] Geno Carr: And she's an extraordinary character, a true life character, but she is number one, one of the show's biggest fans.

[44:59] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely. Oh, yes. Yep. Super fan.

[45:01] Geno Carr: She's one of the first female airline pilots.

[45:06] Jeff Parsons: Commercial airline pilots.

[45:08] Geno Carr: Of all time.

[45:09] Jeff Parsons: And certainly the first in American Airlines history.

[45:12] Geno Carr: That's right. Kind of a tough broad from Texas with a husband and kids, but just found her passion flying planes. Everyone who was there, of course, was incredible and theatrical, but to have Beverly also be there, just given her history and what a trailblazer she was, and sort of a lighthouse for females in aviation. But to have her happen to sort of be there, it's a strange coincidence, if nothing else, to have her be woven into this story and to be there, as you said, sort of a tough broad.

[45:51] Jeff Parsons: And the thing that she loved the most in life was planes. I mean, that was her passion since she was a young girl. Then to have the thing that she loved the most be something that was used as a weapon to fly into these buildings and to murder all these people.

[46:07] Geno Carr: And she loves the show. First time she came and saw it, she just bawled the whole Me and the Sky song, which is almost verbatim, the interview that she and David and Irene had together. Because she didn't know. They'd done interviews and asked her questions, and she knew there was a show and that she was in it. And then suddenly this beautiful, incredible anthem song for women comes on and she and just her whole family are bawling because they had no idea it was going to be her words and how powerful her story was, especially in this context. It was something very special to be a part of.

[46:43] Geno Carr: And Me and the Sky is probably the song of the show that has now a life outside of the show. I got to know Come From Away first by that song. That was what reached my ears first. And there was always a lot of hype surrounding it. And seeing it in the context of the show lives up to all the hype. What an extraordinary song.

[47:07] Jeff Parsons: Jen Colella is an extraordinary performer.

[47:11] Geno Carr: That song was written not for her, but as she began to sing it, they changed the key to fit in her voice better. And yeah, everyone who sings it is, of course, wonderful. But there is something always to be said for when a song is written for the first person, it's sort of meant to be written for in that context. There is something very special about it.

[47:31] Geno Carr: And the way the show is staged, I got to sit on stage sort of as a bit of a Greek chorus in a horseshoe in the dark behind and just all 1,200 shows I did, I watched her or a handful of others. There were not that many other people who did our roles throughout the course of the history of the show. Got to be a part of that. Didn't get to sing it. Didn't get to stand up and clap and sing. But I got to just be in that space. And she is one of the most painfully consistent. Almost to the point of like, are you kidding me? You're eight shows a week, three years, you're doing that.

[48:07] Jeff Parsons: And her voice was just always on spot.

[48:09] Geno Carr: But it was also every single time just as powerful. She never phoned it in. She just never came in and relied on the vocals. It was always that package deal that you hope and dream it'll be when you go see somebody. She is it. She is Christmas morning in that song every single time.

[48:27] Jeff Parsons: That's so cool. Who else we got on the plane?

[48:30] Geno Carr: We have Ali.

[48:31] Jeff Parsons: Yes, Ali.

[48:32] Geno Carr: Now, Ali is Egyptian. And what a heartbreaking story he goes through. So he's really wanting to help and everyone's kind of afraid to talk to him. Then finally, he's like, can I please help cook the food? I'm literally an award-winning five-star chef. I oversee all these hotels.

[48:51] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, exactly.

[48:54] Geno Carr: And they're like, oh, just kidding. Yeah, come on in. And then at the end, which is just so heartbreaking, when it is time for everybody to go home, they have the clear to take off again. They won't let him on without doing a complete strip search, which in his culture is forbidden. It's forbidden for anyone to see him, I think from the navel to his knee.

[49:19] Jeff Parsons: That's right.

[49:19] Geno Carr: Unless they're his wife.

[49:21] Jeff Parsons: Right.

[49:22] Geno Carr: And so to be doing that and then also have Beverly Bass in the room because she's the captain is just this strange culture clash of people trying to be themselves. But it seems like no matter what, you're doing something wrong by being who you are. It's sometimes unfair. This happened and Beverly spoke to us about it. She said, I mean, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I did not want to have to do that. I didn't know how to be in there. She said, but I had to. It was my job as a captain to be in that room and be sure that the check was done appropriately because it's my plane. And if anything happened, it would be my fault. The buck stops there.

[50:02] Geno Carr: And for Ali, it was just doubly, triply, quadruply humiliating. So that was one of the things that David and Irene and Chris and the whole team wanted to be sure about was that people were reminded like it wasn't all rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. People were scared. There were dangerous things. There was unknowns. And Ali's sort of arc throughout the course of it got fleshed out a bit so that we could be reminded of that. That it wasn't just, oh, they get to go home. It's like, well, yeah. But when they get home, what's going to happen? Now he has to go back home and go back to work. And his daughter, he has to drop her off at school. And she says she's scared to go in. You know, there's still a lot to work through in the world. And for Ali, especially, it was a difficult return to the United States and to American life.

[50:48] Jeff Parsons: I really like also how those moments of reality are given to say what it's like to be charitable. This town is receiving huge shipments of food to take care of everybody, right? But then the reality is there's no place to refrigerate the food.

[51:06] Geno Carr: Right.

[51:06] Jeff Parsons: Like they didn't ship refrigerators with all of those donations. And so then what do you do? Well, in Canada, you use the hockey rink, which I think is just brilliant.

[51:17] Geno Carr: Which is where we then performed our concert versions when we went to Gander was in the walk-in refrigerator, the community center.

[51:24] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, crazy. This is insane.

[51:25] Geno Carr: Right? I mean, come on. You couldn't even write this.

[51:31] Jeff Parsons: I know.

[51:31] Geno Carr: That's from beginning to end. The whole process. We've said that about the entire processes. I mean, obviously it was written. Yes, we wrote this. But like the whole world of the show, the entire evolution of it, the way it all happened, every step of the journey, like you couldn't write it. Honestly, Donald Trump being elected before we got to Broadway. There was this division in America. Suddenly our show comes in and talks about, no, what about not being afraid of the other person? What about taking care of each other? What about reaching across? And even though you may be nervous or not sure, listen to that person.

[52:02] Geno Carr: So the show, every step of the way, had so many amazing moments of wait, how did that happen? This is crazy timing. It's so poignant and relatable and approachable.

[52:14] Jeff Parsons: It's much easier to explore this national tragedy, this worldwide tragedy through Gander than I think it even is through New York City.

[52:23] Geno Carr: Oh, absolutely. It was incredible over and over again, was students who would come, not even students, like younger people who had not been alive when 9-11 occurred and had heard about it, had read about it, had seen videos about it. But we would over and over get the feedback of like, I didn't get it. I mean, I didn't, I knew it had happened. I knew it was bad. But there's a difference between living through something and being connected to something. And this is a great way to then have them get to live through it, but in a positive way. They understand what happened, but it's not about that as much as it's about, okay, this is what can happen, even if those things are happening.

[53:00] Geno Carr: Because I'm a farm boy, I have to talk a little bit about the animals. So it turns out, of course, there are animals on these airplanes.

[53:07] Jeff Parsons: Of course.

[53:07] Geno Carr: And Bonnie to the rescue, she ends up crawling into all of these airplanes to find if there are any animals. And she finds eight dogs, nine cats, and two chimpanzees.

[53:22] Jeff Parsons: Right.

[53:22] Geno Carr: Once again, you can't make this stuff up.

[53:25] Jeff Parsons: Nope.

[53:25] Geno Carr: Not only does she find two chimps, one of them is pregnant. Like, are you serious? I'm just pregnant. I'm a rare bonobo chimpanzee. And all of the stress, of course, affects the animals. And so the chimpanzee goes into labor and loses the child, which is very sad. But then the chimps go to a zoo in Ohio.

[53:46] Jeff Parsons: Is that right?

[53:46] Geno Carr: Columbia.

[53:47] Jeff Parsons: Yep, Columbia Zoo.

[53:48] Geno Carr: And she ends up having a new baby.

[53:51] Jeff Parsons: And they named the baby what?

[53:53] Geno Carr: Gander.

[53:54] Jeff Parsons: Yep. I know in the dog, Ralph goes on to be a champion cocker spaniel. I mean, it's just like all of these things. You're like, how is this possible? You can't write it because you don't have to write it. It really happened.

[54:04] Geno Carr: You don't. Like, and if anybody was like, yeah, right, you're like, check the receipts. It's all there. People all the time after the show would say, was that real? Did that really happen? We're like, yeah, everything that happened really happened. People did not believe us half the time.

[54:19] Jeff Parsons: Well, like any good piece of art, I find that it's often reflective of the society in which it's originally produced. But then as life continues and the world changes, you find new ways to relate to it. And we've already talked a little bit about it being a very relatable piece because of the 2016 election, the huge division in our country.

[54:41] Geno Carr: But now here we are in 2020 with a pandemic.

[54:45] Jeff Parsons: And I got a little sad this morning, like listening to the show, because I was like, oh, what I wouldn't give to like cook breakfast for some strangers right now. You know what I mean? Like one of the hard things about this is that sometimes I just want to do something to make myself feel better. And I've been told the thing to do is to not do anything.

[55:10] Geno Carr: One of the really beautiful lines in the show is that at the 10 year reunion of this whole thing in Gander, they say we are commemorating what we lost, but we're celebrating what we found. And I think I realized this morning, I'm not sure if I know what I found yet through this whole quarantine experience. I know what I'm working through.

[55:29] Jeff Parsons: Oh, but it really inspired within me that as we come away from it, I'm not only commemorating what has been lost. And so many people have died, but also celebrating hopefully some new things that I found. I don't know what those are yet, but.

[55:49] Geno Carr: Well, and sometimes that comes with hindsight. I mean, you're talking about what they said on the 10th anniversary, right? They did as time moved on, they were able to look back and go, I mean, we had so many of these amazing relationships formed and bonds and experiences together against this backdrop of something horrible. But it's looking back on it and saying, oh, you know what, I learned something through that experience.

[56:12] Jeff Parsons: That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

[56:14] Geno Carr: Oh, thank you. Congratulations on being part of musical theater history and one that not only paid off personally, but artistically as well.

[56:24] Jeff Parsons: Well, thank you. It's an extraordinarily special story, an extraordinarily special show based on that story. The people all came from a good place. And so all these good things happened thanks to this goodness. And that's not always the way it works. So it is a special piece of theater because it tells good stories about good people doing good things. And that's not always the case.

[56:59] Jeff Parsons: Hey, listeners, we're back. I'm back with Hōkū. All right, so let's dive into it.

[57:04] Jeff Parsons: Takeaways from some of the similarities or differences from the story of the island of Newfoundland and what they experienced there versus what's been going on here.

[57:16] Hōkū Pavao: Takeaways. I mean, so many, so many, right? These people coming together, a small town coming together and saying, we're going to go into action, we're going to help. You know, no, we don't know these people. No, we have no connection to them. But that's what we're going to do.

[57:31] Hōkū Pavao: But that's what we're going to do because they're humans.

[57:33] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[57:33] Hōkū Pavao: Because we're connected in that piece. I was reminded listening back on the episode of the little conversation we had about some of the pitfalls of being charitable, being charitable, where in Come From Away, they had all of this food and no place to refrigerate it.

[57:46] Jeff Parsons: So they put it in the hockey rink, right?

[57:50] Hōkū Pavao: Yes. And like that happened all over the place where people were sending clothes and bedding. And we had just had piles and piles of donations and nobody to go through it. So like the amount of bedding, Hōkū, that I went through and it was it was really sweet. But there were also some pieces where I had to say aloha, mahalo and goodbye because they were disgusting.

[58:18] Hōkū Pavao: More help is piling up. Yes. I know Memorial had the same thing. It's just like okay everybody's like they stopped taking donations a couple days in because it's like thank you so much. And we don't have enough people to go through this and we don't have enough places to store it so it doesn't get ruined. And on this side of the island there is rain so now the donations are getting rained on and mildew. There's just like layers, so many layers. It's fascinating. Isn't it? Isn't it? And then you go you know some of these are the bigger organizations that come in. Thank goodness for them. FEMA, Red Cross. And when you come to I think any small town or indigenous culture or a place that has a way about them and don't understand that way it's also hard for that help to make it to the people who need it because there isn't a common language understanding.

One of the biggest things I think was the you know here in Hawaii we call everybody auntie and uncle. And so when you say where's your family and they're like oh my auntie's over there. It's like okay but that's not your blood auntie. You're like it might as well be. How dare you slap your mouth. And here you know people coming from outside are like no no no we want to know only blood relatives. They're like well no I've known that person since yeah before I was born. They are family. And so like no you're not gonna help my family then no I don't want help either. And it's just like okay wait wait hold on hold on no that's not how we're gonna go about this.

[59:51] Hōkū Pavao: Oh my gosh that's fantastic. Yeah I love that so much. I remember being at one of the shelters and helping and I needed like a little break and so I opened up Instagram to like just kind of mindlessly scroll for a few minutes. And the first thing that popped up it was like a video of one of my friends supporting trans rights. And this is gonna sound terrible but my first thought was this is so stupid. And it was because in these situations when you're working with complete strangers who you just automatically feel love for. Never once in my brain did I think who what their gender was, what their sexuality was, what their race was. They were human and their family. And so to see that somebody had to like post something on social media to try and remind or fight for the rights of someone else simply because of this one little aspect of their lives seemed so ridiculously stupid in moments like this.

That I almost wish that everybody could go through something like this. I know I don't I wouldn't wish it on anybody but when you gain that like a zoomed out perspective boy does the stuff that not matter just fall away. Or it becomes so apparent and go wait how have we come to this as a society as a people is how have we become so disconnected from the core of who we are.

[1:02:30] Geno Carr: Yeah what connects us. What connects us instead of what divides us. Yeah because I am like you I believe innately people are good like that's that's just who I am. It's what I believe you know and until you prove me wrong you are a good person.

[1:02:39] Hōkū Pavao: Yeah yeah yeah for sure. Yeah oh my gosh um what were other things oh I I have to say that when I was listening back on the episode I did not remember me saying because this was back in 2020 right when the pandemic was going in on and and I said something like what I would give to serve people breakfast. I didn't remember that I had said that on the episode and and I I don't I don't even know what to say other than I got to serve people breakfast literally and that made me feel good. Go serve people breakfast and I did I mean I didn't do it well you guys I did not know that the two scoops of rice oh is like the minimum for a pancake breakfast but that's how things are but that's how things are here yeah right yeah so but I repented I learned my lesson and I gave the man his rice anyway but so grateful for that.

[1:03:52] Hōkū Pavao: Oh let's see was there anything else oh the other thing that I wanted to touch on we talked about how not having cell phones was such like a plot point because everybody wanted to call home and talk to their families and that wasn't a possibility and I think I said like cell phones would have changed everything and now cut to here all of the electricity was out on the west side and communication like cell phones didn't do a flippin thing no no actually so it turns out I was wrong and it didn't like it didn't solve anything well I mean it did yeah but I mean they had it been able to be used in the way it's used it would have helped a lot I mean oh oh we know you know there are lots of things that ended up happening to create the catastrophe sure which we found ourselves power lines being out fire no way to communicate you know that was effective or could be effective I mean there's a there's that whole idea of if they had sounded the tsunami alarm which okay interesting enough growing up here that's a tsunami alarm yeah every first of the month we get a big alarm first day yeah you can hear it all over the island yes and you're like oh that's the tsunami alarm and so I think about it and I go would that have helped or what did that have on a Tuesday night right and it's not the first of the month and you hear that alarm what do you do I would freak out and start running and I'm like what pandemonium would that have caused to by the way for the entire island for the entire island we'd all would have been like what is happening.

[1:06:01] Geno Carr: No perfect I mean no perfect there's nothing there's no perfect answer to this no there isn't there isn't the hope and wish is that what is learned from this prevents something like this from happening in the volume of which it happened sure right so looking forward people want to help mm-hmm I'm sure that many people listening want to help and I haven't really shared all that much about how people can help like we said because there's just so much we didn't know but now a month out how do you think the best way to help is you know there are there are direct donations through I can't remember the link because it's it's a Google Doc actually it's a Google Doc that has all the GoFundMe and Venmo's of every family on the island that's put it up Wow yeah and so and it tells you how you can support them where you know their GoFundMe page or their Venmo page and that direct support has been invaluable because these physical donations are wonderful as well but we are inundated to the point where my brother just had a baby three months ago and he can't find pampers on the shelf to fit his baby because they're all they've all been donated to a warehouse yes and being waited to waiting to be used yes so yes as someone who's like I don't need the help but man I need to go shop there because I need pampers for my baby you know I'm willing to pay for them well he actually did he went he was like I'm gonna make a monetary donation if I can take this this package of pampers cuz they're all sitting there and not in the store oh my god isn't that crazy Wow so the inundation of help again yeah and trying to balance that right right now and so I know that direct help there are a couple of wonderful organizations that are also pulling together the Kaka'o Maui fund is from the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement they actually have a shop set up in Maui mall that you can come to goes through the process people who are knowledgeable in FEMA how do you get assistance how to apply for insurance how to collect for your injury I mean like anything you could want legal advice it's there yeah that's one I would definitely support and then the Maui County Firefighter Relief Fund was also one that's yeah I would I have and would support continue supporting and then Hawaii Community Foundation there have been rock stars yeah talk about fundraising rock stars yeah they're the ones associated with Maui strong Maui strong yes yeah so those are those are some great first steps you know whether you want to direct locally straight to someone or through a nonprofit I would also encourage there are so many great local businesses mm-hmm that have been of course impacted not only because of the fires and the fires taking away the homes of their employees and sometimes the business itself but also the tourism that maybe had been supporting that business and and yet they are goods that are not specific to tourism you know I I think of Maui State Chocolate Kuia is one of my favorite ones because they are for those who don't know Maui is the only place in the United States where you can grow cacao and like create chocolate so they have this you know chocolate forest and create chocolate and and it's delicious and because of the soil of Maui it has almost like a fruity date like finish to it which is so cool but they are also carbon neutral and all of their profits go back into the community yeah so like there are there are those types of organizations that you can support and order through online because their online business is still available so we'll see if maybe we can share some of those with our listeners as well yeah that would be wonderful because there are tons of businesses right now definitely hurting and still trying to serve their community yeah both yeah right mm-hmm and the one thing you know everybody as we were that first week and everybody's like I want to help I want to help I want to help and I think the awareness came to some of the leadership going keep that mmm right now may not be your time to help because it's gonna be a long road amen to that mm-hmm that's such a good point if you're not feeling super motivated to help now wait because there will be opportunities I mean debris hasn't even started to be cleared like that's how early in the process this is like I've had people ask are they rebuilding I'm like oh no that is a long way away right well and I also in order to help I I encourage people to educate themselves on this place because helping sometimes means rethinking what we thought Lahaina was you know in this iteration of what was colonialism right and and so rethinking what you think Hawaii is you know and recognizing it as what was a sovereignty and we are part of the United States begrudgingly now yeah exactly I have to remind myself that Hawaii is a younger state than my mom is a younger person you know what I mean like she is older than the state of Hawaii that's sobering mm-hmm yeah I think educating yourself on who and what this culture is will give you a deeper appreciation and maybe even then enlighten you on how you can help in your way.

[1:11:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mahalo for doing this with me yes what a fun conversation I hope you all have enjoyed this episode I'm not gonna do our usual outro but please follow us on social media so because we will this week be sharing ways that you can help and as well as other great content and spread the word and spread the aloha because that is what will make not only this place continue to be strong but the whole world better and I can testify of that love you all and Hōkū is there any like do you want to plug anything do I want to plug you want to plug your socials that you'd never post that I never post on oh my gosh this is why you know everybody's like you should be in movies I'm like yeah but I gotta like do things you gotta get a publicist yeah I was gonna say okay get a publicist a manager somebody somebody else to do it besides me I'll get my ten-year-old to do it there you go it'll be in the family all right everybody out there remember live with aloha.