Canada’s Come From Away nets 7 Tony nods
NEW YORK — Made-in-Canada Come From Away is being touted as one of the best shows on Broadway, with the Tony Awards nominating the feel-good theatrical production on Tuesday in seven categories, including best musical.
Married Canadian co-creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff received two of the show’s nominations, with nods for best book and best score of a musical.
“I did a sort of fist pump in the air. I was just so proud,” said Toronto-native Sankoff in a phone interview from New York. “I felt like I was at a sporting event and we scored the first goal.
“I’m not a sports person, but it felt like we were really in the game,” added Sankoff, as Regina-born, Saskatoon-raised Hein laughed in the background.
Jenn Colella is in contention for best actress in a featured role in a musical for her portrayal of real-life retired airline Capt. Beverley Bass.
“I figured by the sheer number of texts coming in that something good must have happened for me,” said Colella of how she heard the news.
Other Come From Away nods include Christopher Ashley for best musical director, Howell Binkley for best lighting design in a musical, and Kelly Devine for best choreography in a musical.
Come From Away is set in the remote East Coast town of Gander, N.L., during the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Gander’s population doubled as it sheltered 6,579 passengers and crew from 38 planes diverted when U.S. air space was closed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Sankoff and Hein travelled to Gander for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. They spent a month in Gander gathering truelife tales of humour, hospitality and heroism from locals that they later translated into their theatrical work.
“We said it on opening night when this New York audience gave a standing ovation to the people from Gander and the Come From Aways that we interviewed. We’re so honoured to be telling this story and having the story recognized,” said Hein. “What they did — it’s just such an honour to be sharing it and to be having that recognized.
“It’s everything that we could have wished for and more, it’s so incredible. And we’re so proud to be telling this Canadian story and sharing with the world everything that we love about Canada and Newfoundland.”
Prior to Tuesday’s Tony nominations, the homegrown production was already receiving plenty of recognition from critics within and beyond the Big Apple.
The show has received a slew of theatre nominations from the Drama League Awards, Drama Desk Awards, the Outer Critics Circle Awards and the Chita Rivera Awards.
The show also received 14 nominations from the Helen Hayes Awards, which celebrate excellence in professional theatre throughout the Washington, D.C., area.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, a sung-through musical that dramatizes a 70-page melodrama at the centre of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, earned a leading 12 Tony Award nominations, which also saw nods for Bette Midler, Kevin Kline, Josh Groban, Danny DeVito and Cate Blanchett.
Groban earned a nod for portraying — in a fat suit — an unhappy husband in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. His musical will now compete for the best new musical Tony with Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen and Groundhog Day.
The best play nominees are Sweat, Oslo, Indecent and A Doll’s House, Part 2. The category sees a former playwriting teacher — Paula Vogel of Indecent — face off against one of her former students, Lynn Nottage, who this year won her second Pulitzer Prize for the drama Sweat. Both women made their Broadway debuts this season.
Kevin Spacey will host the 71st annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York on June 11.