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[0:00] Josh Mitchell: In spirit of reconciliation, We Are Theatre acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.

[0:08] Josh Mitchell: We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

[0:23] Josh Mitchell: Hello, theatre fans one and all. We are back in Gander. Gander is currently, or Come From Away, is currently in my hometown, which is so exciting. Um, I'm here with Kyle Brown, who's currently playing Bob and Others. Hey Kyle, how are you going?

[0:40] Kyle Brown: Oh thank you for having me. I'm very well. How are you doing?

[0:50] Josh Mitchell: Um, let's touch on that real quick and then we'll come back to your kind of history. Um, getting to open the show in a city that hasn't seen professional theatre in 30 years. What what's that like to be a part of that cast that brings professional theatre back to a city?

[1:07] Kyle Brown: Oh man, it was really cool. It's been so amazing. Um, you know, just hearing that Gander, Gander, hearing that Newcastle hadn't had a professional show in 30 years. Yeah, I wasn't sure how it was gonna go down, but uh just being here honestly, opening night, and even during the previews, you could feel the genuine appreciation and love from the people of Newcastle and surrounding areas that came. Like everyone was just so excited to have this show here, and yeah, it really resonated in the room.

[1:36] Kyle Brown: Yeah, I it's been really, really cool. I was there at opening night and the vibe in that theatre, like I've seen this show multiple times, and like I still don't think to this day that I've seen that show performed any better or had a better reception than that one we got at opening night, which is really cool. Maybe I'm biased because it's my hometown, but hey, it is what it is. Let's start back to really well. Um, how did you get into theatre? Where did your love for the performing arts start?

[2:06] Kyle Brown: My love for the performing arts. Oh, uh church. I'm a church boy. Uh that's how it started for me anyway. Uh singing music was my first love and my first passion. And uh any way I could you know find a way to sing, I would do it. So in high school, um my drama teacher, I took drama, I took performing arts, and that's where I started. The first musical I did was JCS. I played Judas in grade 11. And uh we also did Le Miz. Um, and so I loved theatre ever since. Uh, but my path to professional theatre was a little different than one might think. I didn't immediately follow that desire. I actually went off to like a seminary basically. I was very, very religious at the time, very in the church. It was a very kind of conservative uh Christian ideology, and I started studying uh theology and music there as well, uh, like church music, gospel music. Um, and then that path sort of didn't pan out for me.

[3:07] Kyle Brown: I had you know some changes of thought and whatnot. And I realized that that wasn't going to be the direction for my life. So I uh I went back to the drawing board, and then as I was just kind of exploring life, my old high school drama teacher messaged me and was like, We're doing a community theatre production, why don't you come do Le Miz, which you did uh in high school. Uh so I want you to, you know, come on this game and let you do it. And I was and I hadn't been on theatre stage in quite a while, and I thought it would be fun just to do it. And once I was back on that stage, the spark was reignited for me, and I just kind of followed it from there. So special now.

[3:43] Josh Mitchell: Now, this is your third attempt at getting Come From Away on stage. Um, being a part of the Toronto cast and everything that went down in Canada trying to get the show up and running twice, then two pandemic lockdowns. What what was that like? Um, from your perspective, and how did you kind of from my perspective?

[4:11] Kyle Brown: Yeah, from my perspective, it was uh it was definitely a very strange and kind of uncertain time. I think it was for the whole world. Um from me specifically, I wasn't in the original Toronto production uh cast. I was I was cast later to replace uh Kevin Medal, who was playing Bob and others in Toronto. Um, and so I got cast in February of 2020. So if you do the math, yeah. And for me it was kind of it was kind of wild because previous to that I had gone through a lot of personal struggle. Um, I hadn't done theatre in a couple of years, to be honest. Um, my life was just felt like it was falling apart. I had lost some people that were close to me. I was insecure in my housing. Um, it was just there was a lot going wrong, and this opportunity came up, and I didn't think I was gonna book it at all.

And I remember 2019 just being the worst year of my life and saying to myself, 2020 has got to be better. Yeah, and then it started out that way. I mean, at the top of 2020, I booked this incredible gig. It's the biggest show in Canada, it's the most successful show in Canadian history, and I booked it and I was so excited. And I have four rehearsals in March, and then the production shut down. And they were like, Yeah, two weeks. We're gonna be close for two weeks. And so I'm thinking, okay, cool. Two weeks I can do that. No. There wasn't two weeks, as we all realized.

[5:41] Kyle Brown: Um so what was interesting for me was actually my first performance with the cast of Come From Away was on Zoom. And uh yeah, it was on Zoom. So what had happened was there was a newspaper uh publication called the Toronto Star in Canada, it's one of our major uh newspapers um or news paper's not really a thing anymore, but uh news sources. And um they wanted us to do a performance of Welcome to the Rock online via Zoom, like everyone was doing at that time. Um so I was a part of that, and I hadn't told a lot of my family or a lot of friends about me booking the show and what was going on, especially because all of this stuff was going on. So people just kind of saw me pop up on Zoom uh on a YouTube video with the cast of Come From Away.

They were like, Hey, did you forget to tell us something? Um yeah, yeah. But that was my first performance with the Toronto cast. So um that was it was cool, but of course I wanted to be in the room and I wanted to meet everyone and in person and have that going on. So um that that took place around August of 2020, and then uh we finally mounted it back up in December of 2021. And we were there for only a week, only a week, and all of us got COVID and the production was was shut down, and I was devastated. It felt like such a blow because I think we all expected that we would get COVID and that we might have a few shutdowns and that kind of thing. None of us really expected that they were going to decide to just close it permanently.

And having done only, you know, nine shows and one preview, I didn't feel like I could like I got my chance at the show. And I remember just writing this very, very probably over emotional Facebook post about it. And like just being so sad. Um, because it was it just felt like I was being teased, you know, and strung along the whole time. I finally booked this gig, my life's about to kind of turn around, and then a pandemic happens, and then after that we finally come out of it, and then we're it's still not gonna happen, right? So yeah, that was uh it was still definitely stressful for me.

[8:00] Josh Mitchell: So how then have you ended up here in Australia doing this show?

[8:06] Kyle Brown: Yeah, so so that amazing, it's been amazing. Uh so that happened. Uh the production got shut down. Well, that was December of I guess 2021. And uh I was just there looking for work, just doing what I needed to do. And a couple of months later, I got an email that basically said we need to fill a few roles in the Australian production. And we know that the Toronto production has has closed permanently. Would you would you like to come to Australia? At first I thought it was a lie, I thought it was a joke. I thought somebody was like, I was like, assist, am I getting scammed? Like I had all these things going through my head, and my heart just started like beating very, very quickly. I mean, yes, I'm going to Australia, but how?

What do I do? How do I make this work? Like, this is incredible. And so, I mean, the productions across the world are really a community. Um, and there's a lot of moving between you know productions. You've got Ash who's a standby here that's now in the UK. A lot of the Toronto casts are now on the North American tour. Um, and so uh the message of the show being the community is really in the productions are put on.

[9:18] Josh Mitchell: Yeah, making your way down here, meeting a whole heap of kind of new faces with this cast. How was it kind of slotting in and getting things off the ground here as things came back alive?

[9:36] Kyle Brown: I I was very nervous to come here. Um, sliding into a new cast in general is is always a little bit unnerving. You're just not sure what the dynamic that has already been established is, not gonna know how you're received, you're not going to know it's just you're the new guy, right? I felt that way when I was joining the Toronto cast, and then coming here, it's a whole other country, right? On the other side of the world, and you're not sure about how they're gonna receive us Canadians, what the Aussie sensibility is gonna be like, um, and just what what it was going to be. And but I can tell you that everyone here was so incredible, so welcoming.

[10:17] Kyle Brown: Um I get along so well with so much of the some all of the cast, really, the crew, the whole company. I mean, it's been really an incredible experience, and the casting company have been so more than accommodating to us Canadians that came over.

[10:35] Kyle Brown: Being Canadian telling a Canadian but international story as well, um, abroad, being um given this chance to kind of do this story and kind of tell it in a different country. What what's that been like for you? And what did you know of kind of Gander and what happened over that time before joining Come From Away as well?

[10:58] Kyle Brown: Yeah, I remember um well, first of all, it's just been an incredible opportunity. I mean, when the production shut down in Toronto, I remember feeling that it was kind of sad that at the time the only production of this story in the world that wasn't playing was the Canadian one. You know, the Australian one still had plans to reopen, the UK was going, Broadway was on, the tour was on, and the only production that wasn't telling the story was the Canadian production. And I just thought there was something a little bit sad about that.

[11:29] Kyle Brown: Um I remember when 9-11 happened, you know, there was obviously as Canadians were very close to the border, there's a lot of connection there. And I remember knowing that planes were diverted to Newfoundland. And that's all I knew. A bunch of planes got diverted to Newfoundland, and um and that was it. So it wasn't until this story was created, was made and and and uh developed that I really learned the true nature of what happened in Gander until Come From Away, you know, kind of made it pretty big, and I started hearing wind of it. Um that was the first time I really learned the kind of the details.

[12:12] Kyle Brown: And to be able to tell this story in another country is really such an honor. Um there are so many things that you don't think about that are that that these people went through at that time um that we take for granted. You know, it's a bunch of planes. We're diverted to Newfoundland. That's fine, but I didn't realize that it was such a small town. These people had to house people in their homes and and these people had to give, you know, uh of what they may not even have had for themselves. Um so it's really just like it feels like an opportunity to sort of educate around the world, um, and to share love and kindness, like the story um, yeah.

[12:54] Josh Mitchell: And I think there's a really important point right at the very start of the show, you kind of come out with this up energy, and then the kind of fight breaks out, and you guys are like, why are they getting divided, diverted here? And then you have the moment of realness of they're here because if something goes wrong, and you feel the sense of everybody in the audience go, oh yeah, this is a real story. Like this is in a happy moment, like and like there's just that gravitas of also the awareness of people being like, Yeah, crap, there's a reason this is happening, and there's a reason this is going on.

[13:35] Kyle Brown: Um, so um, so bringing Bob down under um this kind of almost comedic relief character that this they had to come in and brighten the mood after some scenes, how um obviously putting him together in Canada and then bringing him out to Australia, did your Bob kind of change at all?

[13:58] Kyle Brown: Yeah, I don't think he changed that much, to be honest. Um, I mean, he's changed just in in my ability to spend time with him, you know, and to to sort of discover more layers of what's what's happening with him, but I don't think it has anything to do with uh where I'm located. Like if you know, if I was in Canada, if I was in the States, if I was no matter where I am, I think his story is his story. I think it's just changed to the effect of me uh learning more about him and understanding what his motivations are and his insecurities are um that that kind of bring Bob to life and make it so funny.

[14:36] Kyle Brown: The thing about Bob that I love is that he's a complete relief to the show, but it's not based in anything that that's that's funny. It's it's based in his lived experience. He has very rational reasons for being so afraid and and for being sort of skeptical of these welcoming people. Um I think I think that's Bob. I like one of my favorite parts of the entire show is the whole where am I gonna leave my wallet thing? Like that, like yeah, where am I gonna put it in a wallet as well? And I think it's just like it's the perfect like I think that's the moment that kind of really solidifies how open and welcoming the Newfoundlanders were, and just like not expecting anything in return.

[15:23] Kyle Brown: Um just hey, we're here to help. And I think that's kind of that scene for me really sums up the entire story kind of in one part, like, cool, let's just do it. Like so good.

[15:36] Josh Mitchell: Um, being on stage, what is your favorite? No, you not that you're ever off stage in this show, being flat out. Very, very short amounts of time when we get off stage. A couple of your favorite moments to be a part of and get to put together for this show.

[16:00] Kyle Brown: This is always such a tough question. I kind of have to cheat a little bit. Like I can't point to one moment, but I would say the like the first maybe not the very first from the first plane until they reach the Gander Academy. There's like this just a chunk of time. It's about 20 minutes or so of just like driving. It's like non stop. They're on the planes and they're on the buses and there's back and forth. And I feel like those 20 or so minutes really set the pace of the show, um, which is intentional for the audience to understand that it was just kind of chaos and it was just chugging along nonstop.

[16:42] Kyle Brown: And I feel like, you know, the creators of the show have done such a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant job of setting that pace for us actors on stage and for the audience to really just kind of get swept away into this production.

[16:56] Kyle Brown: Um it's just so well done to me. Um and I haven't seen a show that kind of like that does that in that way. Like it's just it's so cool. So I find that from that plane and onto the bus and and all of that stuff, right until they get to the academy where they can finally breathe and they look at the TVs and they finally see what happens. They've been on a plane, like and you have that moment where you're all just standing there and it kind of all just goes silent, and you just kind of feel everybody feeling everything over and over again.

[17:35] Kyle Brown: And I think that's yeah, so unique in the way that people have yeah, like the creatives have thought about that and gone, okay, we're gonna create this moment where everybody is gonna feel something somewhere and it's just so well done yes um yeah uh yeah um yeah yeah that's fantastic I love that um getting the emotional ups and downs just while we're on the kind of emotion this as an audience member you laugh cry clap and kind of ride this wave for 120 minutes and don't really take a breath what's it like for you on stage right this show um I mean from a just an actor's point of view is a yeah it's a it's peculiar show because we have no interval uh and we go for a hundred minutes and you would think you know having done shows that are like three hours long that this would be an easier show to do because we're in and out but because we do not leave that stage and we just sort of go through all of these emotions it is a very exhausting show to do not to mention all the stamping hurts your knees but that's that's something else but uh if it's an exhausting it's an exhausting show and it's an it is an emotional roller coaster.

[19:06] Kyle Brown: The thing is though like we we have to like learn to not sit into that emotion too much. Yeah um that's for the audience to do, but even the the way that the show is designed, it doesn't allow you to wallow. There's no wallowing around. And I mean, this is one of the first things that we learn when we come together. It's in these moments where it gets kind of sad we you can't carry that throughout the rest of the show. In a minute, you have to you have to switch to something else.

[19:33] Kyle Brown: Um, so you feel all of that kind of roller coaster of emotion um from laughter to to sadness, yeah um, to wonder and awe, and and you don't get to just sit there, but it is an emotional, it does take an emotional toll on you, and you just feel wiped by the end of the year.

[19:53] Josh Mitchell: I think for me, like with Bob, for example, that that moment right at the end where he's talking about coming back to New York and seeing things change. Yeah, how where do you draw the emotion that you because you deliver that really, really, really well. Where do you kind of get that emotional drive from?

[20:14] Kyle Brown: Because that comes across as just pure raw kind of drive there. Honestly, um, well, there's a couple things usually going on in my mind at the time, but I just remember like I I go back to that that time when that was happening.

[20:33] Kyle Brown: I was young, but I was about 13, you know, just in during my teenage years when 9-11 happened, and um, you know, just I remember watching my eyes are just glued to the television non-stop.

[20:46] Kyle Brown: And for someone who's you know 13, becoming processing all that, I don't think I understood what was going on, but I just remember that I could not stop watching the news, you know, even if my mom wasn't there, I was gonna turn it on and watch it uh for myself and just seeing how it affected people.

[21:05] Kyle Brown: Um, but I also draw from personal experiences in my life. I mean, this is when you when something has so changed in your life that it's now feels an emptiness and a void. I mean, I think anybody can relate to that, whether it's a building that was in the sky or a relationship that you had. Um, that's the whole point of that number. Something's missing. Everybody's talking about the change that has happened and the void that's kind of been left with them.

[21:30] Kyle Brown: I I draw from any amount of personal experiences. I mean, oftentimes I think about um yeah, you know, some losses that I've had in my life. Um, which are hard, but you have to kind of go there sometimes to kind of pull that emotion and and just I don't know, just bringing myself being daring enough to bring yourself to that place where where you can roll. I think that's what kind of makes this show so special, because like we all have a connection to that moment in a way, whether like what not that we were in Newfoundland, like, but everybody remembers that moment.

[22:12] Kyle Brown: So I think instantly you can kind of see yourself in someone on stage, and and I think that's a really kind of cool thing that I can't say any other shows really bring to the stage, which I think yeah, yeah. And it's it makes sense. This is what I love about each show because everybody walks out and goes, that was fantastic, but damn, like that made me feel things because you kind of without I don't even think most of the time I'm crying thinking about this, guys. Oh my god. But I like I find myself three four times every time I see the show, just in tears, just of emotion, just letting things out, being like, Yeah, cool. Wow, that hit me different. Like that is making me feel that like I I understand feeling alone, like the um costume party scene, like that's like if you take that out of context and not in there, it kind of hits different. Like there's real life aspects to all of this.

[23:14] Kyle Brown: Yeah, you know, yeah. I watched the show recently. I had at the end of our semi season, I had a like an injury on my leg, my ankle. And so I had to take some time off, but I thought, why not watch the show? Because I haven't really had a full chance to watch it in years, right? I saw it once in 2019. Um just as a viewer. And then during my, you know, the voting process and me kind of integrating into the Toronto cast. I sat down to watch some of it, but I had a prior engagement, so I could only watch, I think up until uh up until they first got to the Gander Academy. So I didn't get a chance to see it. But anyway, I watched the show, and I found myself after having performed the show, you know, over you know, a hundred times, I found myself getting very emotional and in strange places, and one of those places was costume party.

[24:11] Kyle Brown: I did not expect to suddenly like be tearing up during costume party, and I was so emotional during that scene. It's very like even at different times as well. Because like my mom and I have seen the show multiple times. We were at opening night, and we both had a moment where we both teared up at the very start somewhere, and I can never pinpoint it. The more I think about it, probably happened tonight when I see the show. So I'll make note of it. But like I'll see you there. I know you're coming tonight. Um, but like there's a moment and it changes. Like, like there's obviously you set moments like where you're silent watching TVs, but like there's other moments where it's just more personal. It's like I feel that like I connect with that, and I think that's I just love this show, guys. And that's why I've covered it so much on this podcast because it's just so yeah relevant.

[25:02] Kyle Brown: Yeah, it's a relevant show, it will always be relevant because it is about kindness, it is about community, not to mention the fact that a lot of us have some form of reference for this massive event that you know took place in America, and the show is about America and Canada, but it's about the world and it's about the community, and it's and we can all kind of relate to this in some capacity. I also I always say this is the show to take anybody to the people who don't love musical theater love this show. People who love it. Just buy the ticket, it's it's a hundred minutes, just go for an hour and a half, then come back and tell me that you don't like it, but I bet you won't. And so many people have gone and seen it and texted me, like exactly. Oh yeah, you were right. I was like, see, like it's just everything the the lighting, the the stage, the costumes, the the way you guys transition between scenes blows my mind.

[26:00] Kyle Brown: Yeah, yeah. When you watched it in Sydney, like were there any moments like when you were viewing it as a uh as an audience member, knowing how everything works, were there any moments you were like that's actually really cool? Like how that happens.

[26:16] Kyle Brown: Yeah, there were. I mean, there's there's a few things. I mean, it was difficult for me to watch in the beginning. Like it took me a minute because I was watching it from an actor's perspective from somebody who's been doing this show. And just like looking for all the small things, looking for every transition, looking for following my track to see am I in the light here? Can people actually see what I'm doing? But the show doing what it does, and the amazing way the show is just swept me away. And I just got lost, and I was able to watch the show in fresh eyes as an audience member. And yeah, there are so many moments where I was just like, This, these, all of these, all of the all of the building of the planes and the buses that are done in like a millisecond, it feels like are incredible.

And and you know, to commend, I guess myself, but all the actors were able to pull that off in such a I mean, I we run through these transitions in the rehearsal process, just like again and again and again. You've got to get that exact chair on that exact mark, right? And in this amount of time, and you gotta not hit anybody on the way, and you gotta not you know bump it to someone. And so it's all about weaving the traffic through and making sure it's it's done, yeah, you know, executed perfectly.

[27:35] Kyle Brown: Yeah, um, I think the transitions are some of my favorites, but I think if I was to slow it down to kind of one point, the um somewhere in the middle of nowhere scene where the the revolve kind of comes around every time I'm in tears. Like that is just spot on yeah, like the lighting, the the music there, the the moment is just it's so beautiful, beautiful moment. It's so incredibly beautiful.

[28:07] Kyle Brown: Absolutely. Guys, I'm seeing the show tonight. I'm I'm already crying. Tonight's gonna be.

[28:15] Kyle Brown: So to wrap kind of things up here, if you had to elevate a pitch this show to anyone in Newcastle, Adelaide, Perth, I think Canberra is on the list as well. See, I'm all over it, guys. I know what's going on. Um if you had to elevate and pitch this show to those people that maybe are sitting on the edge that are the the non-musical theater people that are have their friends pestering them, going, hey, come see this show. What's your elevator pitch for Come From Away?

[28:47] Kyle Brown: Oh this is this is always a tricky one. This show is so bizarre, it's such a hard show to explain. It's an experience. I would tell someone like if you want to have an amazing experience, go see this show. This is beyond entertainment. This is an experience, and you will leave changed, you will leave challenged, and you will leave with a smile on your face with joy in your heart, but also deeply moved. Um, it's going to be an experience that you that you just are not going to get very often. There's a reason I keep going back. I'm going back to number 12 tonight, guys. So like the it's it's there's something different every time you see it. So even if you've seen it before, see it again because it'll it'll hit you different, I promise.

Um Newcastle finishes up March 5th, guys. Then we have Adelaide followed by Perth, followed by Canberra, I believe it is. Make sure you see this show. Come back and tell me if you don't like it. I'll proudly cop it on the chin. But if you go here and do not like this show, wow, I I don't know what to say.

[29:58] Josh Mitchell: Um thank you so much, Kyle, for joining us this week. I greatly appreciate your time. Um guys, if you need any tickets or information on where you can see the show come from, way.com.au is the place to go. We are at wear theatre.com.au. That's where you can find us. Um and you'll see all our social content from this tonight show and further shows down the track. Um, but thanks again, Kyle. And guys, you will catch us next fortnight with a brand new episode of the We Are Theatre Podcast. Bye.