I Am An Islander

Come From Away

Segerstrom Hall

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Costa Mesa, CA

Glenndy enjoyed "Come From Away" at the Pantages so much that they wanted to see it again in the OC, and asked if I'd like to join them.  Since we weren't going for the really expensive seats, I was in!  Then they asked if I'd like to go to dinner, and we decided to go to Leatherby's Cafe Rouge.

Dinner was wonderful, despite my feeling that I was sitting in the Cone of Silence.  We got to see a friend of ours, whom we miss from Catal.  We were sorry that we couldn't stay for dessert because our show was going to start soon.  He asked us to meet up with him after the show, and we happily agreed.

Our seats were in the Loge, house right, row T, seats 8-10.  Nobody was sitting in one of the seats in front of me, so I was able to have a clear view of the stage.  I knew a couple of songs from the show from listening to it in Bro's car.  Cindy had told me the basic premise, and I'm glad she did because we didn't really have time to read the program before the show started.  The story is about a town in Nova Scotia, where many of the planes had to land on 9/11 when all flights were grounded.

• This show is non-stop.  It had no intermission, which was unfortunate for me, because I had to miss a couple of songs.  It was nice that they pipe in the sound in the restroom and lobby area so that I could at least hear what was going on.
• Cool staging!  I like how they arranged the chairs from being passengers on a plane, to being passengers on a bus, etc.
• Wow, the actors had at least 2 characters to learn for this show, and there are a LOT of words.  Kudos to y'all for making it look seamless.
• I liked how the relationships developed between the different characters, especially Diane and Nick.  Because I'm a shipper.
• I really liked the mashup of the different religious songs in "Prayer".  I think that was the most poignant part of the show for me.  That, and when the guy realized that he could communicate with the non-English speaker by using passages from the Bible, starting with Philippians 4:6: "Do not be anxious".
• "I am the executive chef for a major hotel chain!"  
• "Please send the recipe for the cod."
• Crazy how some people had to stay on the plane for 28 hours.  "Do you want some Xanax?"  Dude, I would take it.
• "There are probably a lot of women of childbearing age on those planes."
• "So I went back to Shoppers..."
• Aw, they named him "Gander".
• I really like how we got to see the effect of 9/11 on the people on the other planes, as well as the folks in these generous, lovely towns in Newfoundland, as well as, I'm guessing, in many other parts of the world.  We focus so much on the tragic stories of that horrible day, but this show is about the goodness of people despite fear and terror.
• The band was awesome!  I love that they got their own spot during curtain call.

I bought a CD and a scarf, then we went to George's bar to meet up with our friend, Albert.  After several minutes, he was able to take a break and sit down with us so we could catch up.  It was really great to see him, and we hope to return on a night when we don't see a show, so that we can take our time.  A staff member at the cafe took this pic for us with this lovely backdrop.

Thank you, Albert!