This Thursday, I experienced Come From Away again. I’ve experienced it twice in theatres, a couple of times on Apple TV+, and countless times streaming the music. And I very explicitly and deliberately use the word “experience” instead of “watching” and/or “listening.” Of all of the theatre I’ve seen, Come From Away is the one that full pulls me in and makes me feel ALL of the feelings. Knowing that every actor on stage is portraying actual people who lived through the event, and are often speaking in the actual words of the affected people, turns my empathy up to 11 or more.

I understand and deeply feel the terror, the fear, the agony, the relief, the fascination of exploring new identities, and how the experience ultimately changed them. I want to believe I would act like the people of Gander with incredible grace on such short notice. I want to believe I’d be open to new experiences like lumberjack Kevin, I’d like to believe in new love found in horrible situations, I wish I would be clever enough to figure out how to communicate with fearful people and tell them they have no need to be anxious.

I feel my guts wrench when the pilot, Beverly, realizes that the thing that has brought her the most joy in her entire life was just used to kill hundreds and thousands of people. And Hannah, desperate to get news about her son, and then the heart-wrenching resolution. I am literally on the edge of tears throughout most of the 90 minutes, and there are several times I’m entirely overwhelmed. Even listening to the cast recording will bring the tears (as it’s doing at this moment as I’m typing this).

They often say theatre can take you away, allow you to live other people’s experiences. For me, Come From Away is the epitome of that maxim.