As soon as Katalina Hadfield heard that the rights to perform the Broadway musical Come from Away had been released last November, she called her friend Irene Brink to ask if they could bring it to Las Cruces.
"I love a musical with a message," Hadfield said in this interview with Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin. "This show has really beautiful underlying themes of community and caring for strangers, and shows us how that can be a nice balm and a cure to so many of the horrors that we experience in our day-to-day lives and world."
The musical, which first hit Broadway in 2017, tells the story of the days following 9/11, when US airspace closed down and 38 jumbo jets filled with passengers had to land in Gander, Newfoundland. David Hein and Irene Sankoff, who co-wrote the music, lyrics, and book, spent a month in Gander during the 10th anniversary of the attacks, listening to the stories of residents and travelers who landed there. Brink said she hadn't heard of the musical until Hadfield approached her, but then watched it several times. "It's a really meaningful — but also a very heartwarming — show. I have fallen in love with it."
Come from Away opens at the Las Cruces Community Theatre on Friday, Aug. 7, with performances taking place for three weekends on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. Hadfield is the director and Brink is the music director, with a large cast of local actors and a band of local musicians. Listen to the interview to hear much more about the show.
All clips in the interview are from "Come from Away," by David Hein and Irene Sankoff, original Broadway cast (Molly Records):
1) "Welcome to the Rock," sung by Joel Hatch & company
2) "I Am Here," sung by Q Smith
3) "Prayer," sung by Chad Kimball & company
4) "On the Edge," company