The crack team behind Dramatic Productions’ 2022 Dogfight ­is back again with another likely showstopper, the Broadway musical Come From Away.

I say Broadway, but it’s actually the longest-running Canadian musical in Broadway history. 

Creators Irene Sankoff and David Hein based it on a famous episode when the small town of Gander in Newfoundland (The Rock) nearly doubled its population rapidly on September 11, 2001, after 38 aircraft carrying 6579 passengers were diverted to the town’s airport.

The visitors are the “From Away” part of the title and they became known as the plane people, welcomed by the townspeople in an extraordinary demonstration of sheer humanity that forms the core of the folk-rock musical, where the actors play multiple parts.

Producer Richard Block describes it as “an uplifting tale of community, connection and compassion.” 

The company’s Dramatic Difference program will see a percentage of ticket sales from selected performances go to local organisations including Headspace, Hands Across Canberra and Majors Creek Wombat Rescue. Patrons can also buy tickets that will go to those facing hardship.

The directors are Grant Pegg and Kelly Roberts; musical director, Caleb Campbell and choreography by Nathan Rutups. The show has 18 catchy numbers and the quirky characters, played by just 12 actors, are mostly based on real people.

One such is Bob, one of the plane people, played by first-time stage actor Travis Moore, whose character was inspired by the real-life Tom McKeon, a worldly-wise New Yorker.

“Bob is quite a typical New Yorker, cynical, suspicious of people’s motives and slow to let his guard down,” Moore says. “But he finds that there is goodness in the people of Gander and, as an acting role, it’s challenging because he makes a nice transition as he struggles with his natural, cynical instincts.”

He also plays Captain Bristol, the persuasive airline pilot who represents the aviation industry’s initial confusion then its co-operation during the crisis, probably an amalgamation of several such personalities.

Quite a few of the other characters are real, including the now-famous pilot, Beverley Bass.

By day a human rights advocate in the ACT, Moore was born in Maryland and spent 20 years in New York City before moving to Canberra with his partner in 2022.

“This is my very first theatre performance, although I did do a cabaret course with Queenie van de Zandt a few years ago,” he says. “I’m very excited.”

Moore’s accidental meeting

His accidental meeting with the directors happened when they overheard his American accent in Civic and asked him if he’d be interested in auditioning.

“I said, why not? and then I got a phone call about the audition, so I said sure, and that was it.”

He praises Come From Away for its ensemble qualities, saying: “It doesn’t work without everyone in the show committing themselves, every one of the 12 people is on stage the whole time.”

He may not have acting training, but Moore has a strong background and singing, with musical parents and a great deal of high school and church singing in Maryland.

Highlight numbers to him are Beverly’s moving song, Me and the Sky, along with I Am Here sung by Hannah, who loses her firefighter son during the 9/11 rescue operation, and – in his own moment in the limelight – the reprise of 38 Planes/Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere.

“It’s great to have a little solo,” Moore says.

Come From Away, Gungahlin College Theatre, October 3-18. Bookings and donations, stagecenta.com