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'Come From Away' Story and Characters | The BSB Podcast · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  Joining me today always is my co-pilot to this non-stop plane ride, RJ Miller-Zelinka.
• 0:06
  How you doing today?
• 0:09
  Clean ride gets me.
• 0:13
  Why?
• 0:13
  Why does that get you?
• 0:15
  plane ride versus flight.
• 0:19
  yeah, well, you know, it's called improvisation and I didn't do it very well.
• 0:26
  I mean, I dig it.
• 0:27
  just, I was like, why does that sound so funny in my head?
• 0:31
  And then I was like, yeah, cause it's called a flight.
• 0:34
  because it doesn't exist.
• 0:36
  Because there is a word for that.
• 0:39
  I saw something yesterday that said reverse progression and someone said there's a word for that and now I feel like I'm the reverse progression of lights here.
• 0:49
  It's fine.
• 0:49
  I did that earlier as we know, so.
• 0:53
  so obviously we're here to talk about Come From Away, um, which I had never seen before, which I feels like I said in my review of this, that this felt like a travesty that I have
• 1:02
  never once seen the show before because I loved it so much.
• 1:07
  have you seen Come From Away?
• 1:11
  From far away, yes.
• 1:14
  I mean, I worked the show when it came through Grand Rapids a couple years ago and was, you know, probably, I wasn't working the orchestra.
• 1:26
  was working like balcony or mezzanine or something.
• 1:31
  So I caught glimpses, but enough glimpses to enjoy it.
• 1:38
  So like you kind of knew what the story was about like I guess like before you were ushering Did you know like how did you hear about come from away?
• 1:45
  Like did you know about it when it was on the running?
• 1:49
  Well...
• 1:50
  I think actually that's why I heard one song, like it just came across my Spotify playlist that I really, really liked.
• 2:03
  And I was like, what is this from?
• 2:04
  As one does, which then ventured into my, you know, timely obsession with the soundtrack, but it is a show that's very hard to follow.
• 2:20
  via the soundtrack, because as we're about to discuss, same people playing multiple characters.
• 2:26
  And when you can't see that and you can only slightly hear the variations in voices, you really have no concept of what's going on.
• 2:38
  So that was technically my first exposure to it.
• 2:43
  I mean, that is fair.
• 2:45
  I think before we get into that aspect, I think we gotta break down the show a little bit for everybody.
• 2:49
  This is a story about the city of Gander, Newfoundland, during the events of 9-11.
• 2:55
  So while it's really kind of associated with American history, it's also vastly removed.
• 3:01
  I feel like that's the best way to kind of describe kind of like the beginning aspects of that story.
• 3:06
  Would you agree with that?
• 3:07
  Yeah.
• 3:09
  It's like very much this, it's about 38 planes, 7,000 people who were landed on an island which had kind of been forgotten by the aviation world.
• 3:20
  It once was kind of a hub.
• 3:22
  And it's, they take these people in and it's mostly about the relationships of the people who live there versus the people who are landed and the bonds that they make through those
• 3:32
  relationships.
• 3:35
  And this goes to the point that you said, a lot of these people play somebody in Gander, somebody on the airplane.
• 3:40
  Sometimes multiple people are in Gander and multiple people on the airplane.
• 3:43
  And so I can understand why that would be confusing from the soundtrack.
• 3:48
  Yeah, and obviously it becomes way more clear when you see the show and you can kind of hear the separation of accents a little bit more, but singing voices tend to be a little
• 4:03
  bit more similar than speaking accents.
• 4:07
  Like a lot of times people aren't singing in as strong of an accent as they would speak.
• 4:13
  Absolutely.
• 4:14
  I mean it was played up very much like the don't you knows and you know when you're seeing the show but it really is from start to finish.
• 4:24
  I think the thing that was interesting about the show is that it's all singing.
• 4:26
  It kind of reminded me of like a Les Mis without being a Les Mis you know like where you're just from start to finish it's like one song into the next into the to the next
• 4:35
  compared to seeing ushering it perhaps or seeing the album.
• 4:39
  What was that kind of like, you know, it's a one shot straight through for the show.
• 4:44
  What parts did you feel like really worked for that?
• 4:48
  I mean, the pace of the show.
• 4:53
  I think it's appropriate.
• 4:57
  Because you don't want to sit too long.
• 5:01
  There's just so much storytelling to be had that you have to keep it moving.
• 5:06
  Like you said, some of them are covering two, three, four characters.
• 5:15
  But maybe they're only covering a character for like a line or two.
• 5:19
  So yeah, you have to keep it moving.
• 5:25
  And I think that...
• 5:28
  that is a part of trying to be as true as possible to the actual events and trying to encompass as many viewpoints as they could in a small amount of time.
• 5:41
  for sure.
• 5:42
  So for this story, you know, because we really do kind of want for this episode, focus on the story.
• 5:47
  What's what's what stories or narratives from this show really kind of stuck with you or kind of did you find yourself kind of gravitating towards?
• 5:56
  Hmm.
• 5:58
  Yeah, well, initially, once again, my initial draw was to the captain.
• 6:07
  Her, like, power ballad is the first song I ever heard and was the role was originated by Jen.
• 6:17
  I never know how to say her last name, Colella.
• 6:22
  Yes, and that
• 6:24
  ironic this show is the reason that I found out about stuff she is the reason that I found out about us because she originated this captain role her solo song was
• 6:40
  My like that that storyline is one of my favorites.
• 6:44
  I think because of many reasons.
• 6:46
  I mean, you have a incompetent encompasses family, but it also encompasses history from another dynamic point with her being, you know, the first female American pilot.
• 6:59
  So.
• 7:02
  Yeah, I I'm all about that.
• 7:06
  was gonna say that is definitely, like I think one of the themes that really sticks out about this show is kind of like the ways in which people are divided as much as they're
• 7:16
  brought together.
• 7:18
  And hers is, her song, you know, Me in the Sky is about kind of the trials and tribulations of becoming the first female pilot for like a commercial airline.
• 7:30
  And like that's really...
• 7:34
  I mean, it's really powerful and it kind of reflects with some of the other stories, but that one really does stand out because she's kind of got this whole weight on her
• 7:40
  shoulders of all these people she's responsible for.
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  And all she's ever wanted to do is to fly.
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  And she had so many challenges to getting there.
• 7:52
  Yeah, it's giving a little Alphaba moment, I think.
• 7:57
  I would agree.
• 7:58
  I would say if there's gonna be a point where someone's gonna have a battle cry it's gonna be during there.
• 8:04
  what's interesting to me is that so yeah, that one is definitely a powerful one I was finding myself drawn to dianna nick for some reason and I don't know if this is the
• 8:12
  hopeless romantic in me Or not, but you know
• 8:16
  Diane is you know this character.
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  I believe she's from Texas.
• 8:20
  I could be wrong there I know they're all flying towards Texas this plane specifically And she meets Nick who is from England who's the going on a business trip?
• 8:29
  And they kind of are forced to be together and they kind of fall in love
• 8:34
  And I do think that there was a lot of like, there was like a lot of beauty in this storyline, especially when you pair it with the storylines of Kevin J and Kevin T, who are
• 8:42
  slowly falling apart, like their love is falling apart as Nick and Diane are falling together.
• 8:48
  And so I felt like that those two like parallel storylines, when you you I feel like you can't look at them separately, you want to look at them together.
• 8:55
  And those dynamics of like, what does trauma do to people?
• 9:00
  I thought so I thought that was really beautiful about Gone From Away.
• 9:04
  Yeah, I mean, it's very much, and I would be very interested in doing a little bit more research on the aftermath of them.
• 9:19
  Because it is, like, I mean, I can't imagine basically maybe thinking that.
• 9:28
  you could be dead, right?
• 9:32
  And that you're stranded in a place where no one knows you amongst thousands of people and just happen to, you know, continuously bump into someone.
• 9:43
  And yeah, very, very helpless romantic, but also like a beautiful thing, obviously, to come out of a tragedy.
• 9:58
  And for a while there, doesn't look like it's gonna, like at first when I first saw them and they're like on the plane, they're kind of talking, they're like,
• 10:04
  They're just gonna be friendly.
• 10:05
  She's kind of freaked out a little bit, you know, obviously rightfully so this is a world I think For those who are too young to remember there was not really cell phones the way
• 10:13
  there were today Especially during that time like you could not get calls through during 9-eleven like this was like such a Everybody's trying to call everybody's trying to make
• 10:23
  those phone calls and so, you know Diane's trying to get a hold of her kids Nick is absolutely alone and you just think they're like, they're not gonna stay together and then
• 10:32
  they start to kind of fall in love you like they're still not gonna say
• 10:34
  I'm not gonna lie, I teared up a little bit.
• 10:41
  As RJ can attest, I cried quite a bit during the show.
• 10:45
  But there was just something like, it was kind of beauty to see.
• 10:50
  I think it reminds us that there is tragedy, there's beauty in the tragedy.
• 10:53
  And I think that there's little people forget that a lot of the time.
• 10:56
  When it comes to 9-11,
• 11:00
  Granted, I know that you're younger than me.
• 11:01
  was only in fourth grade, so you were only in third grade.
• 11:05
  There was beauty in how people came together and on a big collectiveness.
• 11:10
  And I think this is like a small fraction.
• 11:11
  The whole story is about everybody coming together, but this is like the small fraction of what happens when two people who are lost find each other.
• 11:22
  Yeah.
• 11:23
  Yeah.
• 11:24
  I mean, exactly.
• 11:26
  see that happen.
• 11:29
  We've, we've seen that happen most recently, I think with the California fires, right?
• 11:36
  Like, especially when it is some type of disaster type situation.
• 11:42
  I think those, you know, fire flight instincts kick in.
• 11:46
  think we stop caring about the little.
• 11:52
  stuff and start just carrying period and that and this is that's what happens.
• 12:00
  know, along those lines, you do see this in the show.
• 12:03
  I can't think of who the other character, Richard Chaz-Govmez plays.
• 12:07
  I know he plays Kevin T, but there's, plays the bus union guy.
• 12:11
  And you see him like the, okay, we're going to bury the fact that we're fighting over this contract to help people.
• 12:17
  And like, we'll come back to this later.
• 12:18
  We can set aside our differences and we can be there together.
• 12:22
  And so there was like that, there was like, again, that part of like the little things don't really matter when it gets to be.
• 12:29
  with something important is kinda coming up.
• 12:32
  Or Bonnie, know, Bonnie's another one.
• 12:33
  She's taking care of animals and she doesn't care about getting in trouble about going into these planes, you know?
• 12:38
  These small things of humanity at their best.
• 12:45
  Can I ask you about Hannah and Bula though?
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  Because I think that this to me was the most important relationship.
• 12:51
  Did that strike you at all?
• 12:54
  Yeah, I mean, obviously, like...
• 13:00
  Pretty much from the get-go, know how that's gonna go, unfortunately, because that is the experience that so many parents and family members had that day or that week and month and
• 13:21
  so on.
• 13:25
  But once again, when you, when we talk about finding things that are similar, even in a, in a completely remote town in the middle of nowhere for these people coming in, you know,
• 13:45
  like they don't know where they are, who these people are, like finding similarities in this case, um, that their children were
• 13:54
  Firefighters, finding that and then kind of clinging to that and it being obviously massive part of a friendship that becomes lifelong.
• 14:12
  That's again, like in within tragedy, we find purpose.
• 14:19
  I think that that was the one that hit me the most.
• 14:22
  And I'm actually gonna try not to cry right now because this one's still, as I was writing in my review, this relationship hit me the hardest.
• 14:28
  And I feel like prefaces, I feel like I need to preface this by saying that I don't have children of my own.
• 14:34
  I have nephews that I care about.
• 14:36
  And the moment that they showed Hannah trying to call.
• 14:41
  Um and shout out to the actress hannah catherine wall who did a fantastic job in this role?
• 14:46
  Um and same to christian litens litzenberg who played bulla who we got to talk to The moment she tried to call for her son I knew right then that it wasn't gonna work out and I
• 14:57
  in that moment was like, okay You're gonna cry like you're gonna happen.
• 15:01
  It's gonna cry.
• 15:02
  You're gonna you're gonna be a baby.
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  That's fine.
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  We'll live with this And then that one moment where
• 15:10
  Bula can walk away and she turns around and says, like, it's not the same, but my son also is a firefighter.
• 15:17
  Like, it's not the same as being in New York.
• 15:18
  It's not the same as being in here.
• 15:20
  But like that moment of like the empathy, which again, this whole show is kind of empathy at its core of just being like the you and I have something in common and I can't
• 15:31
  understand what you're going through, but I can at least empathize in what you're going through.
• 15:36
  And then when you find out that he doesn't survive.
• 15:39
  and Bula ends up still being there.
• 15:42
  It actually is giving me chills right now.
• 15:45
  There was just something so...
• 15:48
  This whole show is beautiful.
• 15:49
  There was just something so beautiful and so raw about that storyline.
• 15:53
  And again, you see this in every person's storyline in different ways.
• 15:56
  there was like the, like this is a storyline that almost gave you hope.
• 15:59
  Like Diana Nix gives you hope about love in like a hopeless place.
• 16:02
  And Beverly gives you hope about having strength to persevere.
• 16:06
  But there's also hope about finding the person who's like not a romantic partner, but like is your person that's gonna help you get through your darkest times.
• 16:17
  And that just made me love the show so much.
• 16:22
  Yeah, like those are the types of friendships that you'd...
• 16:26
  don't always see or hear about.
• 16:33
  I think especially, and I don't know exactly like what ages they were, but I think especially like when you're kind of mid-life.
• 16:47
  As we know, like growing older, it automatically becomes harder to make friends or keep friendships.
• 16:55
  And so I think that also the potency of knowing that, you know, they visited each other.
• 17:02
  Um, and obviously 10 years plus later, they were still getting together and, seeing each other, um, based on, mean, based on what four days they were there, I think, that's
• 17:22
  insane.
• 17:23
  That is
• 17:24
  Like you met someone for four days who started as a stranger and became lifelong friends.
• 17:34
  yeah, I mean, I guess maybe for, for women, it's, hear about it a little bit more often, but I think it's a good reminder for men too.
• 17:45
  And I think that's also what this show kind of highlighted too, was that I'm thinking of
• 17:55
  I don't think we ever got a character name, but one of the one of the plain people and one of the mayors, right?
• 18:04
  and initially the, the concern about is while it getting taken or to, you know, taking people's barbecues.
• 18:11
  Um, but at the end of it, once again, flash forward 10 years and they're still drinking whiskey together and hanging out and, um, obviously not at the same level.
• 18:24
  as we're talking about, still, those friendships, yeah, we tend to lean towards the romantic because who doesn't enjoy that, but these, I'm glad that they did highlight
• 18:41
  something like this.
• 18:43
  And along those lines too, I think that you mentioned about the gendered relationships, but also just the characterizations that you get in this story of know, Kevin G and, not
• 18:57
  Kevin G, that's from Mean Girls, Kevin T and Kevin J, they're worried about being perceived as gay in a foreign country that they don't really know anybody, you know?
• 19:06
  And you have...
• 19:10
  You have Bob who is worried about being perceived as a black man and you have Ali who I think is very important who is an Egyptian chef who people throughout the show start to
• 19:21
  look at a little bit differently because of the color of his skin and the way that people were starting to perceive people because of what happened in 9-11.
• 19:31
  So you get like all of these different dynamics of different relationships.
• 19:35
  by sex, by gender, by the color of their skins, which you don't always see in lot of shows, and the show did not shy away from any of those.
• 19:45
  Yeah, the intersectionality of.
• 19:51
  what they were trying to accomplish.
• 19:55
  I think they accomplished it.
• 19:58
  Like you mentioned, from gender to...
• 20:05
  sexual orientation to religion, to skin color.
• 20:10
  because that's just the way that it is.
• 20:13
  That's the world that we live in, right?
• 20:15
  Like that's who was there.
• 20:18
  And it's important to highlight that that's who was there because I think...
• 20:25
  Unfortunately, that's not always the way that history tends to be written.
• 20:35
  highlighting true history through art is, mean, of course, we can kind of start to expect that from, I think, musical theater, where we're starting to get more historical or
• 20:52
  get more things that involve history, which is good because it's another way for people to learn it and know it.
• 20:59
  I mean, absolutely.
• 21:00
  And I think that there was a part of me having not seen the show that kind of questioned like the everybody raved about the show.
• 21:06
  I should say it like everybody I knew that had seen the show raved about the show.
• 21:09
  And in my head, I always had that like the how do you make a show about like a world tragedy like that?
• 21:16
  So good.
• 21:17
  And I think it has to go back to like this, like you said, the intersection of all these different things.
• 21:21
  And it really at the end is a story about like grief and like the humor you can find in those things.
• 21:29
  and and being really just you know finding that light in the darkness is what i kept coming back to this entire time like there's such a dark moment they talk they even
• 21:38
  mentioned at one point like the the the television showing just nothing but black clouds and stuff like that and like they're going off to have this moment to just be you know
• 21:48
  we're gonna go become newfoundlanders and stuff like that so i do think that's what just there is this whole beauty and no wonder why i won the tony award you know like
• 21:59
  It deserved everything that it got.
• 22:02
  Yeah, and I mean, specifically around as tragedies do, like we focus so much on the tragedy part of it that it is refreshing.
• 22:11
  And just again, real to say.
• 22:16
  Life was still happening, right?
• 22:18
  Like it's a reminder that, I mean, obviously there was a major focus as those of us who lived through it know in New York City, um, we all did sit there.
• 22:29
  I mean, it was very real, right?
• 22:30
  Like.
• 22:31
  I remember leaving school early.
• 22:33
  I remember my mom having the TV on and it was the same thing over and over.
• 22:38
  And they talk about people just stared at it, right?
• 22:41
  Until they turned it off.
• 22:42
  And that's, that I think is an experience that so many people did.
• 22:49
  And that's one again, again, one of the things that makes the show great is that it's just the lived experiences are very real.
• 23:00
  which I think brings the audience in to be able to feel comfortable enough to laugh at the jokes, to cry when it's sad, and to just feel everything all of the time.
• 23:21
  It's very much a love letter not just to the people who lost somebody but to the people who whose lives were changed and it was everybody you know everybody who lives in
• 23:29
  America's life was changed that day and this was a hundred percent like you said you got to laugh and you got to cry and the people who created this show You know something that
• 23:38
  Kristen had told me in the interview was that it's one act and it's the exact time that they try to aim from When the struck one tower to the other plane hitting the other tower
• 23:47
  like there's so much small details and so much love put into
• 23:50
  this, that you can't help but feel the love from everybody involved and from the show and get to laugh and cry and be moved along with everybody else.
• 24:02
  I wasn't sitting with near you so I don't know if you were actually crying, but I'm assuming that there was probably a single tear somewhere, right?
• 24:08
  Just like a little one down the cheek.
• 24:11
  That's a no.
• 24:11
  mean, I think there was, I don't know if it was when I thought it was gonna be.
• 24:18
  Like I thought it was gonna be at the end.
• 24:23
  But it was.
• 24:25
  I think towards like the middle or towards the beginning, it might've been the initial shock point, right, of when they got off the buses and started watching the TVs.
• 24:36
  Because I'm an empath and when you have a room full of people kind of, because really we're all sitting there collectively reliving a trauma, right?
• 24:45
  Like in this show you are, you were thinking back to everything you experienced.
• 24:51
  So you're, we're in a room full of thousands.
• 24:54
  or a thousand-ish people reliving a trauma.
• 24:58
  And so I think that, and usually that's true for myself, is I'm feeling what everyone around me is feeling, or that's what I'm picking up on, and it's less about what's
• 25:11
  actually happening on stage.
• 25:15
  I know what moment talking about when they got off and they're watching the televisions I actually could act I could feel myself not breathing like I could feel myself like if I
• 25:24
  felt like I was choking and it's the same feeling I actually got when we went to the World Trade Center Museum last year and I just for that moment felt like How can I possibly
• 25:35
  breathe?
• 25:36
  Going through this again, which as a psychologist is a trauma response We're having a trauma response to something and one of the ways to get through trauma is to live it
• 26:14
  sweater on sweater off you know they're a cap on cap off like was it was it confusing at all for you
• 26:22
  So this time, no, but also because there is a pro shot of this that came out during COVID or right around COVID and on Apple TV.
• 26:41
  And I watched that now that I'm thinking about it.
• 26:45
  And so I'm, I'm familiar enough now with who
• 26:53
  is going where and is like what the symbolism behind what they're wearing is and what character that is.
• 27:00
  But initially I had no idea.
• 27:04
  I was very confused.
• 27:07
  I did not know there was a pro shot.
• 27:09
  Now I know what I can watch every single night.
• 27:14
  That's crazy.
• 27:17
  I have to say that I think that there was like, having got a warning from Kristen and when I was talking with her during the interview, I was just, I was prepared, but I still think
• 27:25
  there was like a single moment of being like the who's what, what's going on kind of thing.
• 27:29
  And like, they do a very good job of switching it as they're going, you know, like they're things look like they're playing.
• 27:35
  They're definitely switching accents.
• 27:36
  They don't have ways to kind of switch it, but...
• 27:41
  I that's the only thing that I could possibly see people would have an issue with with the show is that maybe they're little confused at first of like who's what, who's who and
• 27:51
  what's what and what's going on.
• 27:54
  But now maybe then everybody should watch the pro shot ahead of time.
• 27:57
  So.
• 27:58
  I mean, yeah.
• 27:59
  And some of those, like I said, like they're one line, two line.
• 28:03
  I mean, they're running to do those costume changes or, you know, switch a hat or a jacket.
• 28:10
  Very subtle, but enough that you do, like you can't sleep on it.
• 28:14
  Right?
• 28:15
  Like if you close your eyes for a second, you could be looking at five different characters than you were a second ago.
• 28:24
  100 % so we are running out of time so look for our part two of our come from away discussion Well, where we be breaking down more the highs and lows from this hugely
• 28:33
  inspiring show again.
• 28:35
  I am your captain Brian and joining me is RJ Miller's elinco co-captain of this plane flight Huh?
• 28:45
  Thank you again for joining us here in our box seats till our next curtain call