Rep’s ‘Come From Away’ Is a Triumph

Milwaukee Repertory Theater presents Come From Away in the Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse November 4 – December 14, 2025. Pictured L to R Karen Ziemba, Steven Koehler, Gavin Gregory, Michael Doherty, Richard Ruiz Henry. Photo by Mark Frohna.

To open its sparkling new mainstage now known as the Checota Powerhouse, and show off its almost finished $75 million Associated Bank Theater Center, the Milwaukee Rep has summoned forth some of its most talented crafts leaders, its authoritative artistic director Mark Clements and many established big voices and some new ones for a musical in the robust fashion of its expert production Titanic the Musical.

In fact, Come From Away, heralded by many Tonys in 2017 and now available for regional licensing rights, may well be the most performed musical this season in the nation, by my count some 23 productions. Every one of them would hope for as interpretively facile and big-voiced an ensemble as the 12 assembled and forcefully miked by the Rep plus a 10-piece band hidden behind the set pieces of scenic designer Todd Edward Ivins.

Clements is also demonstrating how much this show depends on the pace and unity of voices and purpose. This is not one of those musicals where you hum the tunes on the way in or on the way out. It is not one tune or many that have kept patrons engaged. It is the quick-paced warm embrace of the story, without intermission.

Its constant musical hum is closely attuned to the varied facets of the daily and the unusual, from how the island locals heard of the 9/11 tragedy and how the passengers learned of their unexpected detour to Newfoundland.

While every actor plays many characters, we get to know several of these personalities intimately under the excellent costume trickery of Theresa Ham. The production deftly steps through the mundane moments to emphasize the collective impact and sometimes overpowering harmony.

It is based on 9/11 but inspired strongly by the 10-year reunion in 2011 when married Canadian musical theater experts Irene Sankoff and David Hein heard the stories of Gander – nicknamed the Rock, which is why “Welcome to the Rock” is the opening song — and how both locals and grateful passengers handled the crisis situation with everyday inventive acts and enduring kindness.

What musical possibilities! These were seized upon and embellished by this lyricist-composer-book duo to create the story of how a community of 9,000 Canadians helped some 7,000 passengers from 38 international planes, diverted to the huge WWII airport in Newfoundland because of the horror in New York and D.C. and the shutdown of US airspace. And most had to stay for six days.

The story makes us all ask “where were you on 9/11?” — thus joining Pearl Harbor and the JFK assassination for earlier generations as universal touchstones in US history.

It also wraps 9/11 into the concept of humanity triumphing over ugliness. Here strangers from home and abroad banded together. Here were Muslims treated with suspicion by fellow air travelers, unlikely couples finding romance, gay couples landing fearfully in a remote situation, suspicious big city folks wary of who to trust, all finding a rural community of acceptance.

This is a professional knitting of music and story – of how lyrics can be traded among many actors, with touches of sea chanties, rock, drumming, gospel and popular ballads shifted about. The band under Rep music director Dan Kazemi keeps us bouncing and even provides the final applause-ridden hoedown.

Director Clements and choreographer Jenn Rose keep the cast in constant motion, stopping now and then for an acting point, then reinvigorating the unified foot-stamping and chair-wheeling to create the illusion of planes and motion.

There is some needed gentler singing power from Dayna J. Dantzler as the firefighter’s mother worrying about her distant son in “I Am Here.” There are belting notes and interpretive clarity from Kelley Faulkner to expertly dodge the maudlin moments in “Me and the Sky.” There is nice duo work from Steven Koehler and Karen Ziemba that gives them moments of grace in unlikely lovemaking.

In fact, once I start naming impressive presences – such as Richard Ruiz Henry and Levin Valayil – it is hard to stop since there are many. Their skill keeps us from noticing there are manipulations afoot that are not far afield from TV soap opera. It is the emphasis on speed and technical prowess that helps Clements and the cast succeed.

The real test for Come From Away will come 20 years from now, as it does for all musicals that want to stretch their legs — whether it will produce the concert hallelujahs as we see happening to Les Miserables and Hamilton, or new stage versions liberated to break away from tradition.

There is for now a new path to enter the Powerhouse from the main floor, near what most people associate with the box office. The second-floor entryway is more spacious with concessions, a gift shop and even a chance to order snacks, plus a window view of Wells St.

Come From Away through Dec. 14 is the initial new offering of a theater (tickets here) with a wraparound balcony and three orchestra seating sections, 15 to 18 per row, each row marked with iron handles along separate sets of stairs.

The theater itself feels brand new and it can be reconfigured from thrust to a proscenium for nearly 700 patrons. Expect it to settle in as a comfort zone. The audience and staff are still getting adjusted to the new configuration, just as future productions will explore more of the fly space above the stage and the astonishing batteries of lights.

This show already features back-screen projections of Newfoundland landscapes mixed with flashes of airport radar. Overly curious audience members will have to hunt anew for the TV monitor backstage and what takes the place of the old tunnel entrances.

Come From Away Gallery

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Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here. For his Dom’s Snippets, a family history and memoir, go to domnoth.substack.com