🎟️ Event Review:
📍 Quick Facts
- Event Type: Musical Theatre / Live Performance
- Location: Max Bell Theatre, Werklund Centre, 205 8 Avenue SE, Calgary
- Duration: Approx. 2 hours, including intermission
- Ticket Info: Tickets required
We had the proudest NLer in the house with us last night at the Max Bell Theatre.
After booking my father’s ticket to come to Calgary for his summer visit, we realized that Come From Away was playing at the same time. We knew we had to make it happen for him.
Having seen the St. John’s version a few years back and absolutely loved every moment of that production, we were excited to see how the experience would change off the island.
Our tickets were purchased early because we knew this would be a popular show. It was originally scheduled to run from May 26–June 27, and became an unstoppable force at the box office, completely packing the house night after night. An extra performance was added to keep up with the demand until its final curtain call on June 28.
Come From Away is a critically acclaimed, fast-paced, one-act musical written by the husband-and-wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein. The show transports audiences back to September 11, 2001, when American airspace abruptly closed following the terrorist attacks. Thirty-eight international commercial planes carrying nearly 7,000 stranded passengers and crew members were unexpectedly diverted to Gander, a town of only about 9,000 residents.
Over the course of a few frantic days, the people of Gander, Newfoundland, rallied together with down-home hospitality. They transformed schools, hockey arenas, and churches into makeshift shelters. They fed, clothed, and comforted scared travellers from all over the globe, cutting through language barriers and cultural divides with a heavy dose of Newfoundland music, open bars, and open hearts.
Parking in downtown Calgary is rarely an issue due to the high density of city-managed lots. We parked in a nearby lot and used the Plus 15 to make our way to the theatre, and then the four of us settled in, ready for the show.
Staging the hit musical in the smaller Max Bell Theatre made the story feel remarkably close to the heart. It mirrored the close-knit, welcoming spirit of Gander, Newfoundland, and almost made us feel like we were back home and part of a huge kitchen party.
The 775-seat Max Bell Theatre is a much more intimate space than the big theatres where productions like this can sometimes feel larger than life. With its wraparound seating, the audience feels remarkably close to the action — and for Come From Away, that worked beautifully.
The Come From Away production relies on multi-talented local actors switching effortlessly between multiple roles through quick costume changes. The show functions as a beautiful, high-energy lesson in East Coast culture, where theatregoers have a special guest invitation into someone else’s home.
For Albertans, the show acts as a mirror of ideal Canadian values — hospitality, kindness, and stepping up when people need help. There is a patriotic warmth to the response, and you can feel the audience’s pride in how these Canadians responded to a global tragedy.
For Newfoundlanders, though, there is another layer entirely.
There is an incredible pride in the story of Come From Away, but the show isn’t simply history to us; it is a lived memory. What happened wasn’t viewed as some extraordinary feat of heroism. It was what you did when people needed help. You fed them, found them somewhere to sleep, opened your doors and made sure they were okay.
The idea that our actions, both as a province and as a people, were so unusual that an award-winning musical was written about them is astounding.
And yet, Newfoundlanders often view the story through a lens of quiet humility and even greater emotion. That weight in the Max Bell Theatre is incredibly heavy and immediate. As soon as the play started, it was like we were all transported back in time.
Calgary has a massive population of East Coast expats who moved west for work, and sitting in that theatre, you could feel how deeply this story reaches into that community. For many of us, Come From Away isn’t simply a story about something that happened in Newfoundland. It’s a little piece of home.
The Newfoundland audience listens with an incredibly sharp ear. They notice every inflection of the accent:
‘He sounds more Irish than Newfoundlander’ is almost certainly heard.
They note the exact delivery and comedic timing of local jokes, and the specific body language of the characters. When an actor nails a local nuance, the laugh from a Newfoundland crowd is instant, deep, and knowing.
At the end of Come From Away, our audience responded with roaring cheers, emotional tears, and an immediate enthusiastic standing ovation that felt less like a celebration of a spectacle and more like a communal embrace
And my father? The goal was to make him feel as special as he is to us.
We managed to snag him tickets for Box seating, where he hobnobbed with the upper class and had an absolute hoot… while looking out at ‘us crowd’ down in the commoner seats.
And then, just to put the cherry on top, he got his picture taken with one of the cast after the show.
How special is that?
📊 Scorecard
- Organization and Flow: 4/5
- Engagement & Content: 5/5
- Location & Venue Comfort: 4/5
- Value for Money: 5/5
- ⭐ Overall Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Notes for Improvement: Need more accessible seating options.
