Segal Centre
November 12, 2026
TEXT FROM GRAPHICS ABOVE
Run dates: November 22 - December 20, 2026
Performance venue: Sylvan Adams Theatre - The Segal Centre for Performing Arts
Answers provided by: Jonathan Rondeau, General Manager of The Segal Centre for Performing Arts
Give us an elevator pitch of your show.
When U.S. airspace closed on 9/11, 38 planes landed in Gander, Newfoundland. Nearly 7,000 passengers arrived in a town of about 9,000. The locals opened their homes, schools and Legion hall, fed everyone, and made friends for life.
Come From Away tells this true story with 12 actors playing everyone: townspeople, pilots, passengers (and a few very confused animals). It’s funny, it’s moving, and it’s set to a foot-stomping Celtic score. It’s a Canadian-written musical that went to Broadway and won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical.
Our version, co-produced with the Thousand Islands Playhouse, sold out its whole run in Gananoque and arrives at the Segal Centre on November 22 until December 20, 2026.
What is your favourite part of this production?
Come From Away is full of wonderful moments, and I’m sure that by the time we close, I’ll have collected many more great memories. But even before working on this production, there were two moments that always resonated deeply with me.
The first comes in the opening number, “Welcome to the Rock,” when the residents of Gander recount all the ways that life in Newfoundland can be hard and dangerous — how the land itself has tried to kill them, but they said “no.” For me, everything that follows is informed by that moment. The people who opened their homes and hearts to those stranded passengers were not giving from a place of abundance or ease. This was a community with an authentic, lived relationship to hardship and tragedy, and yet their most natural, most human response to strangers arriving in need was simply to give. I find that such a powerful refutation of the isolationism we now so often see being justified through zero-sum arguments about scarcity. It gets me. Every. Time.
The second moment is a more personal one. I often listen to the cast recording in the car with my family, and there are few greater joys for me than hearing my 11- and 13-year-old daughters belt out from the back seat, with an almost hungry abandon, the verse in “Me and the Sky” where Beverly, having outlasted the old boys’ club, triumphantly declares that no one gets to tell her what she can or cannot do simply because she’s a girl.
Do you have any other pieces or artists that have inspired you or have left inspiration on this production?
I’m going to take this question in a slightly different direction, because one of the things I find most inspiring is just how many productions of Come From Away are happening across North America this season, and that so many of them are non-replica productions — meaning they aren't simply reproducing the original Broadway staging and design.
There's something wonderful about seeing so many different creative teams bringing their own perspectives and imaginations to the same extraordinary story, all at once. It's a testament not only to the strength of the piece, but to the richness of the theatre community and the endless possibilities of live performance.
And for audiences, that's part of the joy. If you've seen the Broadway production, these new interpretations offer fresh angles and discoveries, and a chance to fall in love with the show all over again. And if you're discovering Come From Away for the first time, there's something especially meaningful about experiencing it through the artistic lens of your own local theatre, with the particular creativity and character that company brings to the stage.
How has the current social or political climate influenced this production?
I mean, Come From Away is almost the absolute antithesis of the current climate. It needs nothing added, nothing underscored, to resonate as loudly — or perhaps more loudly — than ever as a warning against increasingly jagged borders and fraying international relations. It doesn't need to be reframed to speak to the moment. It simply reminds us of something we seem increasingly at risk of forgetting: that our capacity for generosity and common humanity need not be diminished by fear or difference, and that the borders on maps must not set the boundaries of our compassion.
How does this production align with your company’s mission or artistic vision?
Since 2014, the Segal has dared to dream big in its pursuit of developing new Canadian musicals that give song to our stories, with productions like Prom Queen, The Hockey Sweater and last season’s Grow. Come From Away is, in many ways, the epitome of a great Canadian musical, and one we've long wanted to celebrate on our stage.
But it’s also, in a sense, the one that got away. While its story, creators and origins are Canadian, its journey to Broadway was largely shaped by development in the United States. Its extraordinary success is both a source of immense Canadian pride and a reminder of how much work remains to be done to build the infrastructure and support systems that allow our own stories to be developed, nurtured and launched on an international scale from here at home.
The greater the success of Come From Away, the stronger the case for investing in the next great Canadian musical — and ensuring that the next one has every opportunity to grow right here in Canada.
How does this show fit into the broader season or future plans for your company?
Three of the productions in our 2026/27 season explore what happens when a community encounters the Other. It Came From Outer Space, a new musical adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic 1953 science-fiction film, reimagines a story that was among the first major alien films to challenge the assumption that the unfamiliar must be monstrous. It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, set to the music of that most Canadian of bands, the Tragically Hip, tells the story of a foreign journalist exiled for speaking out against his government who finds himself in Kingston, Ontario. Alongside Come From Away, these works explore how the best in us can emerge when we encounter someone or something different from ourselves.
At their heart, these stories are about our capacity to reach across differences, to grow through encounters with the unfamiliar, and to discover that we are stronger when we connect than when we retreat into fear. This idea is central to our vision for the season, which is why we’ve chosen the subtitle Where We Meet.
Come From Away
Produced by The Segal Centre for Performing & Thousand Islands Playhouse
Running November 22 - December 20, 2026
At The Sylvan Adams Theatre (The Segal Centre for Performing Arts)