here<\/a>.<\/p>\nA seven-time Tony nominee that won for Christopher Ashley\u2019s direction, COME FROM AWAY chronicles the real-life experiences of the people of Gander, Newfoundland, and the almost 7,000 airline passengers who were forced to land there when U.S. air space was closed on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
Twelve actors tell the story of both the Islanders and what become known as the Plane People, revealing the fear and uncertainty that came with the terrorist attacks \u2013 as well as the profound generosity and compassion of strangers.<\/p>\n
While some characters and stories are an amalgamation of several people and experiences, others are grounded in real-life individuals, such as Captain Beverly Bass, the first female captain for American Airlines; Kevin Tuerff and Kevin Jung; a couple from Los Angeles, and Nick and Diane, who first met in Gander and went on to fall in love.<\/p>\n
With its book, music, and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, the COME FROM AWAY score blends both traditional musical-theatre styles, as well as traditional Newfoundland orchestrations.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, along with acting out the events of the narrative\u2019s four days, the show\u2019s characters step out from the story to narrate the events, and the staging is intentionally minimalist, making innovative use of only a few tables and 12 chairs to represent airplanes, buses and various locations.<\/p>\n
Directing COME FROM AWAY is longtime Circa \u201921 veteran M. Seth Reines, whose most recent productions for the theatre have included \u201cClue: The Musical\u201d, \u201cKinky Boots\u201d and \u201cSingin\u2019 in the Rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Area favorite Ron May serves as music director and Reines\u2019 cast of 12, all of whom enact numerous roles, boasts the talents of: Bobby Becher; Hanna Marie Felver; Sarah Hayes; Gregory Naman; Sydney Richardson; Tristan Tapscott; Ren\u00e9e Elizabeth Turner; Stephen Charles Turner; Kimberly Vanderginst; Shelley Walljasper; Tom Walljasper and Tariq Woods.<\/p>\n
The dinner theatre\u2019s entire staff is thrilled to be presenting the Rock Island debut of this hugely heartwarming musical and urges patrons to make reservations quickly for what is sure to be an unforgettable theatrical treat. Call the Circa \u201921 ticket office at 309-786-7733 ext. 2 for reservations and let your heart soar with the down-to-earth enchantment of COME FROM AWAY.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF – OurQuadCities.com. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the show lauded by the New York Times as a \u201cbig bearhug of a musical\u201d in which \u201ceven the most stalwart cynics may have trouble staying dry-eyed,\u201d Circa \u201921 Dinner Playhouse presents its long-awaited debut of the Tony Award-winning\u00a0COME FROM AWAY.\u00a0 Running at the Rock Island dinner theatre through Nov. 1, this deeply moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[371484,371485],"class_list":["post-2021136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dinner-playhouse","tag-professional-talents"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Come-From-Away-takes-on-Circa-21.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}