By Elazar Abrahams
Never had I seen a Broadway show receive a standing ovation three years after opening. And yet, last night, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, that is exactly what happened.
I’ve wanted to see Come From Away for a while now. The soundtrack is stellar, infectious tunes that rival the best of prestigious musicals. And with how awful everything seems on the news nowadays, I needed a story that would restore my faith in humanity. The show was even better than I imagined. It is bitingly funny and clever and perfectly paced. There’s no intermission, and barely a pause for applause after musical numbers. All that contributes to the capsule-like nature of this story. A moment in time when humans dropped all previous obligations for kindness towards strangers. By the time the final bows came, my eyes were definitely watery.
Back to those songs! Me and the Sky is a badass feminist anthem. Welcome to the Rock (and the finale’s reprisal of it) is a total bop. Wherever We Are and Somewhere In the Middle of Nowhere are fire jams. Prayer is beautifully staged. Come From Away is the rare show I pay to see a second time.
The audience was super into it also. Come From Away is now touring around the country and even across the pond in London. It is truly the little show that could. Or rather, the little show that did.
TV and City 