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[0:00] Michael Fatica: Sometimes we can feel really small, and that can be something that stops us from contributing, but it's an effort we're all capable of making. On the northeast tip of North America, on an island called Newfoundland, there's an airport. It used to be one of the biggest airports in the world, and next to it is a town called Gander. Hello, you're listening to The Shows We Need from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Michael Fatica.

[0:29] Michael Fatica: Good morning, afternoon, or evening. This week, I have been jamming to the raucous tunes from the musical Come From Away. There's a line in the show that reads, "Thank you for shopping at Walmart. Would you like to come to my house for a shower?" Now, that's super creepy out of context, and also triggering at the moment because of germs, but within the show, it's such an example of people being helpful to one another in a way that feels unfathomable right now. I spoke with Alex Fink, a former cast member of Come From Away on Broadway, about how this show has a whole new ring to it in the midst of the events of this past year. Here's our conversation.

[1:10] Michael Fatica: Hi, can you please tell me your name, your preferred pronouns, and where you're calling from?

[1:28] Alex Fink: Hi, I'm Alex Fink, she, her, and I'm calling from New York City. Let's talk about a little show called Come From Away. What's the show about, and who did you play?

[1:34] Alex Fink: Come From Away is a story of a small town of Gander, Newfoundland, and what happened in the days following the terrorist attacks on 9-11 when 38 planes were grounded at their airport after the airspace was closed. It's a story of how this very tiny town, whose population doubled, essentially, when all these 38 planes were grounded there, welcomed the world and provided for these people over the course of the next five days until they could board a plane and go back home. And I played Janice and others.

[2:12] Michael Fatica: Ah, yes, and others. Were your characters based on actual humans from Gander?

[2:18] Alex Fink: Yeah, everyone in the show is based on real people. The writers went to Newfoundland on the 10-year anniversary of 9-11 to do interviews and meet with people to start sort of compiling things for a show, and they ended up meeting all of the characters that you see and compiled tons of stories there. Janice is based on the two reporters that they met with while they were there, Brian Mosier and Janice Gowdy. So she's sort of a compilation of their experiences.

[2:45] Michael Fatica: So say our reference to Canada, meaning mine, is Canada's Drag Race and the Canadian cast of Schitt's Creek. Can you paint a picture of this small town for me? What's the lifestyle?

[2:57] Alex Fink: Part of the setup is that you meet a lot of significant characters. You meet the mayor, Claude. You meet the police officer, Oz. You meet some of those sort of staples in the community. But the thing that's really true of this town in Gander is that in Newfoundland, the winters are extraordinarily harsh, and it's very necessary. It's part of their culture that they just band together and help each other through tough seasons. That's something that you see evident immediately in the musical, where it's Janice's first day on the job, actually, and she walks into the Tim Hortons, and everyone already knows everybody else there. And so it's like, hey, how are you? How are you? How are you? You know, like, Janice, Janice, Janice, Janice, Janice. You know, they all get to meet her. And so they set up that small town community very quickly.

[3:42] Alex Fink: And even from the notice, when the town finds out that there's like a town hall meeting, that all these planes are going to be landing, it's like the second number in the show called "Blankets and Bedding," which is like, okay, what are these people going to need? And how do we mobilize? And it's one of the first things you see in the show is just everybody literally getting on their phones saying like, okay, how do we turn this school into a shelter? How do we make this a shelter? What are they going to need? Blankets, what kind of food are they going to need? How do we coordinate this effort? It's like, truly some of the first things you see out of the gate.

[4:10] Michael Fatica: So here we are almost a year into a global pandemic, and you brought up weather. A snowstorm in Texas has caused folks to lose power, water, pipes are bursting, people are having trouble staying warm. And I'm having trouble imagining Americans stepping up like that as a first instinct. I mean, some people, sure. But on the other hand, you see Texas Senator Ted Cruz flying to Cancun during the aftermath of the storm. How does the positive response we see to a disaster by a community in Come From Away reflect where we are as a culture?

[4:44] Alex Fink: I think it's a show that's going to hit really differently when it does come back. But I think the big thing, and I felt this way being in the show for two years, even prior to all the events of this past year, right, which is that human beings have the capacity for kindness, and that is always a choice that is available to us. We all have it within ourselves to choose kindness, to choose empathy, to choose understanding, and to seek those things out, and to make that part of our fibers, individuals, and as a community. I think it's also good being reminded that people have the potential to be good, trying to trust in the goodness of others, which I, you know, that's something that's definitely been challenged for me with the crazy news cycle and true events of this past year.

And this town coordinated an immense effort to care for these people. But if I think of where I grew up in Ohio, like there was definitely a small town feel. We knew plenty of people. It's not so far outside the realm of possibility that you could pick up the phone and call a friend who calls a friend who calls a friend who calls whoever to coordinate an effort for good, especially now with social media and how easy it is to get information out. I think it's that sometimes we can feel really small, and that can be something that stops us from contributing, but it's an effort we're all capable of making.

[6:12] Michael Fatica: We're also seeing a lot of xenophobia against Asian folks in our country right now because of the virus. I'm remembering in Come From Away a scene where characters are seen reacting negatively against a Muslim character in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. Can you tell us about that?

[6:29] Alex Fink: That scene occurs as everyone's boarding the planes to leave, and it's the first time all these new security... Now that's what going through security at the airport is like, but at the time it was a completely different system for those people. And we see him getting profiled and pulled aside and taken into a private room to be questioned and given a full pat down before he's allowed to go on the plane. Really interestingly, not to... I don't want to take his story, but I know Cesar, who plays Ali in the show, told a story of his experience when they were at the Kennedy Center, I believe it was, doing one of the show's regional engagements on its road to Broadway, saying that a young woman came to him at the stage door and had a very emotional moment with him because she said, I don't know a life outside of that profiling at the airport.

I've just always seen my parents go through this as Middle Eastern Americans, and I never understood why until I just saw the show, because she was so young when 9-11 happened. So I know that there were experiences like that in the audience too, that even though that is a very small scene in the show, it's a very stark contrast to most of the show, which is just like, how are you? Come on in. Let's feed you. What do you need? But I think it's really important that they put it in there. You can't talk about the events at 9-11 without including that.

[7:47] Michael Fatica: Totally. And you know, these moments, though small, might even be more important than the concept of kindness right now. We've started to open up the conversation of racial inclusivity and about how people are being treated. And there are lots of microaggressions throughout the show. Isn't there a scene about a Black man being worried about his safety in a different neighborhood?

[8:05] Alex Fink: Yeah. So that scene in the show is actually really interesting because the scene plays as this huge comedic moment, but there's such a dark truth underneath it. And the scene starts when Claude, the mayor, tells Bob, who is staying with him at his home, hey, go, we're going to have a big cookout for everybody. So if you just go into people's yards and take their grill and just bring them back here, that's how we'll set it up. And Bob says, you want me to grab their grill? People are going to shoot me. And then he goes and he's like, I'm taking these grills. And then someone says, hey, buddy. And he's like, and now I'm going to hear here's the moment. And then the guy ends up offering him a cup of tea.

So it ends up being this big comedic moment. But the truth is, like, in America, he really could have been shot. Someone could... someone's gonna shoot me like that comes from a very real place. I mean, we have such a similar comparison right now with Ahmaud Arbery. I mean, among so many others. And we had those comparisons when I saw the show originally. But as a white man in America, it didn't read then like it does to me now. And I mean, that's a testament to what I had and still have to learn.

[9:18] Alex Fink: Based on my experience, the moment I remember reacting to was the gay couple who didn't feel comfortable being out in this foreign town. So that's another scene in another even mini storyline that I think, again, and these moments play comedically in the show. But if you look at where they stem from, and the depth of truth that is there, I think it's moments that when people come back to the show, eventually everything's going to hit differently. So the Kevins, both named Kevin, are on a walk with Nick and Diane, who eventually do become a couple. And because the show is given in direct address, they're all talking about like, so we went on a walk and the Kevins are saying, we're on a walk. And we, when we first meet people, we don't tell people that we're together, just because, you know, you never know, you don't know how people are going to react.

And then it cuts to Nick and Diane, like, so this nice gay couple came along with us. And they're aware the whole time, but that the Kevins feel like they have to hide themselves. And they end up going to a bar, where they feel like they have to hide themselves. And they're talking at this table. And one of the kids goes, and I say something like, Kevin and I have been together around 10 years. And then the other Kevin cracks, like, you know, we're business partners, or whatever it is for 10 years. It's like a record scratch moment. And then somebody comes in and says, Oh, yeah, my neighbor's a bisexual. And we know how many ran out and it ends up being a non-issue. But the fact that people feel that they have to hide part of who they are on a daily basis, that then that would be heightened when they're in a new place is just is tragic. It's not the world I want to walk around in. And I have the privilege of being a white cis woman. So I can't understand all of what that means.

[10:49] Michael Fatica: How is religion used in the show?

[10:51] Alex Fink: The first instance that we really see this in the show is that there are local people from Gander and they are transporting come from aways to these various shelters right as they've gotten off the planes. And there's a bus full of people that don't speak English. And I can't imagine, I mean, you can't imagine what must be going through these people's minds. Like, I'm off a plane, I can't understand what anybody's telling me to do. But I'm being put on a bus and I'm driving through this like, pitch black wilderness, I have no idea what's gonna happen to me. And as the driver and the passengers try to communicate, the driver sees that there's a Bible in one of their hands, and he opens up the Bible and points to the passage "Be anxious for nothing."

And that's how they're able to communicate through passages of a Bible. And that's something that actually happened. The other religious moment worth mentioning in the show is the song "Prayer." Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love. And that's the hymn that it starts with. But by the song's finale, it's a medley of all of these different prayers that basically say the same thing. And that was something that made me emotional on stage pretty much every night because religion is there to help people be good and try to call us to our higher selves, right? That's when religion is at its best. It's all to inspire us to be better people. And that all of these prayers, it doesn't matter what you believe, we all want the same thing, ultimately. And that the commonality of spirituality, I think, is far too often overlooked.

[12:44] Michael Fatica: Commonality. I love that Alex used that word. I saw Come From Away when it came out in 2017, and I imagine if it was written tomorrow, the story would be different in many ways. But in returning to it, I was surprised about how these topics that deal with America in 2001 and deal with a huge national tragedy leave a different taste in our mouths with our new perspective in 2021. One huge theme in the show is kindness, or rather tolerance. And if we can return as thoughtful theatergoers in the next year and learn a little bit about how to be kind and helpful to one another when it might not benefit us directly from a show like this, then I certainly think Come From Away is a show that we need.

Special thanks to Alex Fink for sharing her stories with us. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Michael Fatica, Jackson Klein, and Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can help The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. The other is by becoming a Patreon member at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of the Broadway Podcast Network. You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Until next time.