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[0:01] John Schwab: Hi, John Schwab here, and welcome to the Curtain Call Theatre Podcast. Just a short intro to announce the re-release of the Welcome to the Rock series that commemorates the 25th anniversary of the terribly tragic events of 9-11. Now, I know we've released these before, but this is such a monumental time to reflect on the last quarter of a century, a period where, let's face it, sometimes life doesn't seem to have got much better. But the story of Gander is such a feel-good story. Come From Away is such a feel-good musical, and Welcome to the Rock is such a feel-good series. We're really proud of it. So hopefully you'll leave today's episode, Episode 2 in the series, in a good mood. Thank you and enjoy.

Come From Away shares the incredible real-life story of the 7,000 air passengers from all over the world who are grounded in Canada during the wake of 9-11, and the small Newfoundland community that invited these Come From Aways into their lives. As uneasiness turned into trust, and music swirled into the night, gratitude grew into friendships, and their stories became a celebration of hope, humanity, and unity.

[1:28] John Schwab: We have been extremely lucky to be able to sit down with the real inhabitants of Gander, the folks of which the characters in the musical Come From Away are based. We wanted to get their story directly from those that were affected by the events of 9-11. For the people of Gander, Newfoundland, nothing could have prepared them for a day that would change that town and its inhabitants forever. But before that, I think it's important to get a sense of the town to set the scene. Gander, in Newfoundland, Canada, has one of the largest runways in North America, due to its value as a wartime refueling pit stop for Allied aircraft during World War II. More than 20,000 aircraft made their way through Gander during the war, and by the 1950s, Gander Airport was one of the busiest in the world, handling over 13,000 aircraft and a quarter of a million passengers a year. But with the dawning of the jet age, Gander Airport has become far less busy, and today mainly serves business jets on transatlantic routes. Here's Mayor Claude Elliott.

[2:23] Claude Elliott: My name is Claude Elliott. I'm the former mayor of Gander, Newfoundland. Gander is the crossroads of the world by air. So every flight that leaves Europe in the morning to come across, once you get over halfway across, the nearest airport is Gander. So any emergencies or anything, if there's a storm anywhere, then they bring the planes to Gander to land because we're the closest airport. Nearly half a decade on, Gander would see airplane traffic like they'd never seen before. Well, September 11th was just like any other ordinary day in Gander, and you know, it was a beautiful day, and I was at Tim Martin's coffee shop, where I go almost every morning, and when someone came in and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, I never paid much attention to it at that time, because I mean, we know there's a lot of planes going in and out of New York, and an accident is possible to happen.

[3:25] Diane Davis: My name is Diane Davis, and I'm now a retired teacher from Gander Academy, and on September 11th, I was teaching grade three French immersion. Our bus drivers were on strike. My husband, who's a janitor, was on strike, and partway through the morning, children were coming and going whenever parents brought them, and a mother came in a little bit after 10 and said, a plane hit the World Trade Center, and I'm here to pick up my son, and we didn't see those two statements as being related, and 10 minutes later, another woman came in and said, the second plane just hit. I need my kids now, and our whole day changed. On a beautiful autumn day, blessed with the clearest and bluest of blue skies, a terrorist attack unfolded before our eyes and live on television.

All of us on the ground were glued to our TV sets, but for those people that were in the air at the time, they had no idea what was taking place below them. Aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Dallas was Captain Beverly Bass.

[4:22] Beverly Bass: So, we left Paris, and we were on our way to New York, and we were right over the middle of the North Atlantic having our lunch. It's a beautiful day, and we heard on the air-to-air frequency, which we have to monitor when we're over international waters, but it's just pilots talking to pilots. It's not air traffic control or anything. Somebody came on that frequency and said that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. So, as pilots, we obviously thought it was a light airplane, and we talked about it and went back to eating our lunch. And then about, I guess it was about 15 or 20 minutes later, they came back on the frequency and said that an American 737 had hit the tower, and right after that came the word terrorism.

We didn't know if they meant American Registered Airplane or American Airlines. Well, as it turned out, it was American Airlines. Right after that, we learned that New York's airspace would be closed, which really didn't affect us because when you fly from Europe to Dallas, you take a very northern route, and you don't go through New York's airspace. So, they then shut down all of the U.S. airspace. That obviously did affect us, and we started planning for a divert. We're plugging in all the cities in our computers, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, all the big cities in Canada. And then we learned, again, on air-to-air frequency, that we would get our orders at 50 degrees west longitude.

When we got to 50 degrees west, which is when you come in contact with Gander Control, they then told us to land the airplane in Gander and land now. And, of course, that's never happened to us. For Captain Bass and 37 other pilots heading across the Atlantic, there was only one option, landing immediately.

[6:39] Kevin T.: Kevin and I were returning from a vacation in Europe, going flying from Paris back to our home in Austin, Texas. And our flight was scheduled to land in New York City on September 11th in that morning. So, we were about two hours out when the airspace was closed. All of a sudden, our plane took a steep drop, and we started turning to the north. I looked up at the GPS, and it looked like we were headed to the North Pole. Shortly thereafter, the pilot did come on and broke in English, saying, due to a terrorist attack in the United States, we'll be landing at Gander. I don't think he even said Newfoundland. He said it in French, and all the French people on the plane screamed and started wailing. We finally got an idea, although it was unbelievable.

[7:27] Oz: On the ground, the officials and residents of Gander had no idea what was about to unfold. Most were just starting out on their normal daily routine. Well, my name is Oz. Well, it's short for Oswald Fudge. I was the town police officer. I policed Gander for 30 years, so I was the municipal police officer there. And during 9-11, what it was, the RCMP and the major police force within the town, they were up at the airport, because you can imagine what they had to deal with up there. My job was to police the town. And there were only two municipal police officers for the town of Gander, so it was only two of us. So I worked 12 hours, and he worked 12 hours. Well, for me, I get a call. Now, I'm not sure exactly what's going on, because I'm patrolling the town.

And then I get this phone call from the staff sergeant with the RCMP. Get up and back to the airport and get up there now. So I go up there, and I'm looking, and there's about a thousand cars going back and forth, and there's people. This is back in the day when security wasn't that tight. There were people hanging off the fences, looking at what was going on. There was, you know, everything was just, people were everywhere. So I drove up the road further, and we got two runways, one that goes north-south, one goes east and west. So it was the north and south one that they were using. And I stopped by that, and I kind of looked over my shoulder, and I see the jumbo jet. She's coming in, and she's landing, and I kind of follow it in.

And then I look over, and then I see another one, an L-1011, which is just a little bit smaller than a jumbo. And it comes in, and I'm starting to think, oh my god. And when I look, you could see the lights of the planes stacked up. And you're going, and you look at how many are already down, and then you're starting to think, oh my god, this is really happening.

[9:23] John Schwab: In a matter of a couple of hours, the population of Gander had increased from 9,000 to nearly 16,000. Because of the nature of the emergency, officials just couldn't let passengers off the plane. They would have to go through stringent security. Beyond that, nobody knew how long U.S. airspace would be closed. Passengers could be stranded in Gander for a week, which could be a logistical nightmare. But for one Ganderite, panic just wasn't an option.

[9:51] Ganderite: Did I panic? Did I? No. When I looked towards the town, and I realized how many planes there were, there was almost like a sense of calm that came over me, because I knew in my heart of hearts what the people of Gander were like, what the people of the region were like, and I knew that they would be taken care of. I knew it. In my heart, I knew it. There wasn't going to be a problem. Here's another colorful character you meet in the Come From Away musical, Beulah Cooper.

[10:16] Beulah Cooper: When I was told there was a plane load coming, my response was, I'm happy they're coming here, because I know they will be looked after. But not saying they wouldn't be looked after elsewhere, but I knew they would be looked after in Gander, and they were, big time. Residents in Gander were trying to prepare the plane people, as they would come to be known, for what was happening, basically as soon as they landed, something that Beverly Bass was grateful for.

[10:45] Beverly Bass: When we actually landed about 10 or 10:30, I think, Tuesday morning, and when they came on the airplane, they said, you will not be getting off until tomorrow, which it was better to know up front than for them to say, you know, we think you'll get off in two hours, we think you'll get off in five hours, we think you'll get off in an hour. We knew right up front that we were there for the day and for the night. And so the flight attendants had one last meal service, which was kind of a snack that they do before landing on international flights. So they saved that for dinner. And I think they fed them pretty early, like five o'clock, put movies on and put them to bed. And then we were up all night. I mean, the crew didn't sleep at all. We couldn't. And the only thing we could do is listen to the BBC in the cockpit. That was the only radio that we had.

[11:49] Kevin T.: As the Kevins explain, some passengers had other ideas as how to pass the time. At first, we were told that we would be there just temporarily, that we would try to make our way closer to the United States, possibly to Toronto or Montreal. And so we waited and waited. And then sure enough, out came the many bottles of liquor and the movies. And so we kind of we went with it.

[12:16] John Schwab: Back on the ground, Mayor Claude was putting his plan into action. Normally, every town has a disaster plan. I mean, there was nowhere in that plan, nowhere, that 7,000 people was going to drop in for lunch. You know, so how do you deal with this? And with 500 hotel rooms. At the beginning, we were told that they may only be on the ground for three hours. And then it became five hours. Then it became six hours. So I remember saying to the city officials that I don't like what's happening. I think that we're going to be here for a while. And I think what we should do is declare a state of emergency. And let's get prepared for the worst-case scenario that the people are coming off of the planes.

So I would rather be over prepared than under prepared. And that's what I did. And you got to realize some of the airlines were calling the hotels trying to book the rooms for the passengers. So once we declared a state of emergency, we control everything in the community. And we wanted to keep the rooms for the crews of the plane, you know, that they were the ones who was going to need proper rest and the rest would.

[13:28] Unknown speaker: I just want to take you back to the beginning of that clip for a second.

[13:58] Unknown speaker: There was nowhere in that plan, nowhere, that 7,000 people was going to drop in for lunch.

[14:28] Unknown speaker: And I think it's just ingrained in the people. The more I asked them about it, the more they had to say.

[14:58] Unknown speaker: We went forward that day to try to look after 7,000 or so people that just dropped out of the sky on our doorstep.

[15:05] Unknown speaker: People knock on our doors in Newfoundland. If it's a Newfoundlander, we'll invite them in. If it's a come-from-away, we'll invite them in.

[15:11] Unknown speaker: We look at the person as a person, not as possible enemy or a possible threat to you.

[15:19] Unknown speaker: It's not that way probably in big cities and that type of thing.

[15:24] Unknown speaker: It's reality that we live on a day-to-day basis. A lot of people still don't lock their doors in our little communities.

[15:31] Unknown speaker: You've got to understand, I guess you'll say, understand Newfoundland, but you have to understand the culture and the history of Newfoundland.

[15:38] Unknown speaker: You had all these small communities around that back in the 40s and 50s, you had no highway. You had nothing.

[15:47] Unknown speaker: So the only people that you could rely on was the people within your community.

[15:52] Unknown speaker: So if something serious happened, your neighbors came to your rescue.

[15:57] Unknown speaker: If you needed food, your neighbors came to your rescue.

[16:02] Unknown speaker: We still have that thought, that mentality, that way of love thy neighbor.

[16:09] Unknown speaker: And if you can help him, help him. So it's that type of mentality that we have.

[16:14] Unknown speaker: Here's Bela again.

[16:16] Unknown speaker: It's inbred in you. I grew up in that situation.

[16:20] Unknown speaker: If you had a love for bread and your neighbor had none, you share it.

[16:24] Unknown speaker: And we always help each other.

[16:28] Unknown speaker: My husband used to have a saying, you never miss what you give away. And that's so true. So true.

[16:43] Unknown speaker: With the plan in place and preparation complete, that giving would start the second the passengers and crew left the plane, as Beverly Bass explains.

[16:56] Beverly Bass: When we got off the plane and on the way into the terminal, they had set up tables and tables and tables because the people of Gander, I guess, had cooked all night long.

[17:06] Beverly Bass: I mean, there was food for everybody in the airport, which we just could not believe.

[17:13] Beverly Bass: And so they gave you a plastic bag from the liquor store, I think, and everybody went through and just, it was like Halloween, just loaded up their bags full of food, anything you wanted.

[17:24] Unknown speaker: For the Kevins, it was more than just food that they were grateful for.

[17:28] Unknown speaker: They're so sweet. I mean, it's like they're from another planet.

[17:33] Unknown speaker: I mean, we could have landed thousands of places across the globe and probably would have slept in the gutters.

[17:41] Unknown speaker: I mean, no one was under any obligation to do anything for us.

[17:45] Unknown speaker: After our school bus drops us off at the College of North Atlantic and we go inside, they were nice enough to set up televisions.

[17:51] Unknown speaker: And that's when we finally see those images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center.

[17:56] Unknown speaker: I mean, for me, it was quite unusual. I'd never had to rely on a stranger for a pillow to lay my head.

[18:03] Unknown speaker: But I'll never forget a young man coming in the door about midnight, and he's got an inflatable air mattress, a double size with two pillows.

[18:13] Unknown speaker: And I thought, aha, Kevin and I, we can sleep on this inflatable air mattress instead of the concrete cold floor.

[18:19] Unknown speaker: So it was a beautiful sentiment, though.

[18:21] Unknown speaker: The bedding wasn't all just thrown in a heap in the middle of the room.

[18:25] Unknown speaker: They had laid out pallets for every single passenger, made a little bed with top sheet, bottom sheet, blanket, pillow.

[18:31] Unknown speaker: I mean, we were all right next to each other because this was just, these were just classrooms.

[18:36] Unknown speaker: We finally realized why we'd been on the plane so long. We thought they'd been getting ready.

[18:41] Unknown speaker: I mean, this is not the sort of thing you can drill for.

[18:44] Unknown speaker: They had been playing it by ear and just the whole community mobilized instantly.

[18:49] Unknown speaker: From that moment on, the story of Come From Away began.

[18:54] Unknown speaker: And the Newfoundland hospitality never stopped.

[18:57] Unknown speaker: Mayor of Appleton at the time, Derm Flynn, describes how the community were able to feed the masses, which leads to one of the funniest moments in the musical.

[19:02] Derm Flynn: Everybody in the community was involved in different things.

[19:05] Derm Flynn: There was hardly anyone home in their houses, so when Tom was helping me with the barbecues, he said, you know, you're taking somebody's barbecue and then we're taking another barbecue.

[19:15] Derm Flynn: You know, if you did this in New York, you'd probably be shot.

[19:23] Derm Flynn: Meanwhile, he was waiting at his truck and he's sending me into people's yards to take their barbecues.

[19:29] Derm Flynn: And it is not something I would do at home. I would never, first of all, even though there were no fences, I wouldn't go on someone's property.

[19:39] Derm Flynn: And then as I'm wheeling them out, they're squeaking and pulling them out of people's yards.

[19:46] Derm Flynn: So even though I'm trying to sneak them out, they're making all this noise.

[19:49] Derm Flynn: And down two houses, there was a gentleman sitting there and saying, where are you going with the barbecue?

[19:56] Derm Flynn: I said, down to the community. He said, Derm's right here.

[19:59] Derm Flynn: He figured he could count on me to get him out of trouble, but I wasn't about to.

[20:05] Unknown speaker: Truck zooming away.

[20:08] Unknown speaker: Knowing how alone and out of place the Plain People were, there was definitely one thing that the community could do to make the visitors feel like they belonged.

[20:17] Unknown speaker: They got screeched in.

[20:19] Unknown speaker: Here's school teacher Diane Davis to explain.

[20:22] Diane Davis: So a screech in ceremony is not as traditional as many people think, but it's basically a ceremony that we use some of our Newfoundland culture and a little bit of humor and some music to initiate a come from away.

[20:38] Diane Davis: There are many variations, but the most correct and proper variations would involve probably eating some bologna, definitely kissing a cod, and it just doesn't count unless you have a screech.

[20:54] Diane Davis: It's a variation on a Jamaican rum, and at the end, you're given a ceremony and you're considered an honorary Newfoundlander.

[21:02] Diane Davis: We also consider you an ambassador and a member of our army.

[21:05] Unknown speaker: And the lovebirds in the musical, Nick and Diane, had a special screech in.

[21:10] Unknown speaker: And we were screeched in.

[21:12] Unknown speaker: Honorary Newfoundlanders.

[21:14] Unknown speaker: And the master of ceremonies, he was a justice of the peace, when he discovered that we weren't married because he thought we were married.

[21:22] Unknown speaker: Because we were hanging out together.

[21:24] Unknown speaker: He offered to marry us. He said, well, would you like to be?

[21:28] Unknown speaker: And this lady here goes, well, why not?

[21:30] Unknown speaker: Why not? I'd had two beers, just like in the show.

[21:32] Unknown speaker: And I bought her two more.

[21:39] Unknown speaker: After five days of getting to know the Come From Aways, with the inhabitants of Gander and the surrounding communities giving up their food and homes, showing a hospitality that many had never seen before, it was always going to be hard for everyone to say goodbye.

[21:53] Claude: Mayor Claude sums it up best.

[21:59] Claude: We had people in Gander from 95 countries.

[22:02] Claude: Thousands of people staying in people's homes.

[22:05] Claude: And they had that personal connection.

[22:08] Claude: When the last plane that left, we looked at the people's faces.

[22:13] Claude: So when we saw the tears of joy, we didn't need anything else.

[22:17] Claude: We knew we had done what we were supposed to do.

[22:20] Claude: I always say that on the first day, we had 7,000 strangers.

[22:25] Claude: On the third day, we had 7,000 friends.

[22:28] Claude: And on the fifth day, we lost 7,000 family members.

[22:32] Claude: And on the sixth day, we had 7,000 friends.

[22:35] Claude: And on the seventh day, we lost 7,000 family members.

[22:38] Claude: And on the eighth day, we lost 7,000 friends.

[22:41] Claude: And on the ninth day, we lost 7,000 family members.

[22:44] Unknown speaker: Ten years on from 9-11, the world's attention would once again be on Gander, as the creative team of Come From Away presented a concert version of the musical to the Newfoundlanders and the Plain People, giving them an opportunity to hear their stories and see themselves on stage for the first time.

[23:00] Unknown speaker: Here's what some of them had to say immediately after seeing it.

[23:04] Unknown speaker: Absolutely incredible. Awestruck. Everybody needs to see this.

[23:09] Unknown speaker: It is so, so great. You know, happy tears, sad tears, just everything, goosebumps, the whole works.

[23:16] Unknown speaker: It's kind of surreal. Somebody actually mentioned to me, a friend of mine is here, and she said, she played your part really well because that's you.

[23:24] Unknown speaker: So it was fantastic.

[23:27] Unknown speaker: We didn't know what the passengers were going through.

[23:30] Unknown speaker: So the play, the musical, talks about, you know, the struggles that the passengers had.

[23:34] Unknown speaker: All we've seen was the work that we've done to make them comfortable, but we didn't see what they were struggling with aboard the planes.

[23:44] Unknown speaker: Never ever saw, until today and tonight, what the passengers were going through.

[23:51] Unknown speaker: But it's a phenomenal show.

[23:53] Unknown speaker: You know, I remember the fun times, I remember the serious times, I remember how we blended them all together.

[23:57] Unknown speaker: And then, in the end, that same feel-good feeling that I get every time I think of that five days and everything around that, it's back.

[24:07] Unknown speaker: And that feel-good thing is going to stay with me forever.

[24:11] Unknown speaker: You know, I had always wanted to see it, but to be able to see it in your hometown, with all your family and friends and community, that is just unbelievable.

[24:24] Unknown speaker: Like, there was a lot of stories that I had told, and there were stories that I'd heard told by colleagues, and then because they amalgamated characters, you knew, even if it wasn't the exact same story, you knew that that's what happened at another spot, or you maybe heard somebody who was involved in it before, and it was phenomenal.

[24:46] Unknown speaker: The music was amazing.

[24:48] Unknown speaker: Reg Wright at the airport says, so you're going to write a musical about people making sandwiches? Good luck with that.

[24:55] Unknown speaker: And, I mean, it was a great story, and it was interesting sitting with my colleagues and telling them each our experiences at Gander Academy, but I couldn't envision it as a musical, and it was phenomenal.

[25:12] Unknown speaker: It was just, the music portrayed not just the sadness and the fear and everything that happened in it, but it was so uplifting, too.

[25:22] Unknown speaker: I mean, especially here, I mean, the audience was on their feet a few bars into the last song, because they were there, they were so proud.

[25:32] Unknown speaker: I think Brian Mosher, half of the duo that would eventually become the reporter Janice Mosher in the show, says it best, and sums up his experience with a little prediction.

[25:43] Brian Mosher: It's incredible. Like, I love it.

[25:44] Brian Mosher: I can't say enough good about this, because this was awesome.

[25:50] Brian Mosher: I can't wait to see where this is going to go.

[25:52] Brian Mosher: My prediction, I predicted it was going to Broadway, it's going to Broadway, and it's going to go.

[25:56] Brian Mosher: And the more people see this, the more people are going to want to see this, and this is a hit.

[26:02] Brian Mosher: I predict that, I go on record saying, this is a hit of hits.

[26:06] Unknown speaker: And it is a hit.

[26:08] Unknown speaker: A hit currently playing in America, Canada, London, and Australia, and it continues to inspire people across the globe.

[26:14] Unknown speaker: So there you have it.

[26:16] Unknown speaker: The journey of the real Newfoundlanders and the Come From Aways, two groups of people who would have in all likelihood never have met were it not for tragic circumstances, but instead have forged bonds that will last not only their lifetimes, but thanks to the musical Come From Away, many lifetimes to come.

[26:33] Unknown speaker: Join us for the next episode, when we talk to the producers of Come From Away, and discover just what it takes to bring a small-town Canadian musical to Broadway, the West End, and beyond.

[26:44] Unknown speaker: See you then.