to return to my family. I knew it would always be a part of history.”
Bass with Karen Mills, manager of the Comfort
Inn. Bass sends flowers every year (Beverley
Bass/American Airlines)Michael Rubinoff, a Toronto lawyer and part-time theatre producer, is the man who conceived Come from
Away after the attacks. But an uplifting Broadway musical about 9/11? It seems like a farce straight out of
the “Springtime for Hitler” playbook. One recalls the disastrous “Osama: the Musical” in the second season
of Skins.
But Rubinoff believed that the story of Gander and the 38 planes would compel audiences with its narrative
of hope through tragedy. It was the story, he said, that made him proud to be Canadian. In 2009, Rubinoff
attended a David Mirvish production of My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, written by married
couple David Hein and Irene Sankoff. He was so impressed that he messaged them both on Facebook,
asking for a meeting. A month later, he pitched the Gander concept to them over lunch in Yorkville. The
couple had been living in New York when 9/11 happened, and Hein had grown up in Newfoundland, so it
was a good fit.
Hein and Sankoff also flew to Gander in 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, to interview the locals.
“Newfoundland is based on this culture of freezing cold winters and gathering in the kitchen telling great
stories,” says Hein. “But they couldn’t understand why we were doing a musical because for them, this was
not an extraordinary event.”
Reg Wright, the airport president, said: “You’re doing a musical about people giving out sandwiches and
letting people use their showers? Good luck with that.”
But the couple persevered with their interviews. That’s when they met Beverley Bass, who they interviewed
for four hours. But after that, she said, she didn’t think about it again. Earlier that year, Bass had received a
phone call from an Austrian film crew asking if she was going back to Gander for the anniversary, but she
didn’t know anything about it. The film crew were going to film Nick and Diane, who struck up a romance
in Gander. They were now a married couple.
“To this day,” says Bass, “I don’t know how they learned about me.”