A moment of ‘severe discomfort’ and ‘pride’: Iraqi, Afghan American actor revisits events of 9/11 in Broadway’s ‘Come From Away’

Immediately following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, stories of people who went out of their way to help began to be told. Tales of those who guided others down flights of stairs in the World Trade Centers; first responders who searched for survivors; people who stood in line for hours to donate blood.

Unbeknownst to many until the 2015 premiere of the musical “Come From Away,” a small town in Newfoundland called Gander played a pivotal role in the days following the attacks, hosting approximately 7,000 passengers from 38 civilian and four military flights which were ordered to land at Gander International Airport as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon.

The town (population as of 2021: 11,880, not much-changed from its population in 2001) received the third-highest volume of passengers, behind Vancouver International Airport and Halifax International Airport.

“Come From Away” tells the stories of how the people of Gander cared for the “plane people,” as they come to be known in the show. The characters in the musical are based on actual Gander residents and travelers.

“Come From Away” features a book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein. The musical plays five shows at the First Interstate Center for the Arts, Friday through Sunday.

The musical stars John Anker Bow (Nick and others), Kathleen Cameron (Bonnie and others), Ryaan Farhadi (Kevin J./Ali and others), Addison Garner (Beverley and others), Richard Chaz Gomez (Kevin T./Garth and others), Jordan Hayakawa (Janice and others), Andrew Hendrick (Claude and others), Kristen Litzenberg (Beulah and others), Tyler Olshansky-Bailon (Diane and others), Erich Schroeder (Oz and others), Hannah-Kathryn Wall (Hannah and others) and Andre Williams (Bob and others).

The show’s standbys are Nick Berke, K. Bernice, Jordan Diggory, Rayna L. Hickman, Sierra Naomi and Justin Phillips.

The band, led by conductor/music director Sarah Pool Wilhelm and associate conductor Bronwen Chan, features Logan Mitchell, Gioia Gedicks, Tonie Nguyen, McKinley Foster, Isaiah Smith, Brandon Wong and Spencer Inch.

Before taking on the role of Kevin J./Ali and others, Farhadi wasn’t well-versed in the world of “Come From Away.” He had a lot of friends who loved the show though, so when the chance to audition fell into his lap, he decided to throw his hat in the ring.

More familiar with older material like “My Fair Lady,” his first national tour after graduating from Penn State last year, Farhadi wasn’t initially sure if the more contemporary “Come From Away” was the show for him, but his agents and the musical’s directing team encouraged him to trust himself and what he could bring to the show.

Once he was offered the role, Farhadi watched a live film recording of the stage production and realized what all the hype was about.

“I was so beyond moved,” he said. “As a lover of theater and as a lover of storytelling, no other story is told this way. The manner that they address the audience, the way that they use so little to create these pictures and these scenes, I was fascinated immediately and so excited to be a part of it.”

Early on in the rehearsal process, the direction team told the performers about the language of “Come From Away.” They weren’t speaking about the song lyrics or how to nail the perfect Newfoundland accent, but rather the pace of the play, the manner in which performers address the audience and create sets out of mere tables and chairs.

There are no holds for laughs in “Come From Away,” Farhadi said, because the moment one scene ends, the set pieces need to be rearranged for the next scene. Turning the chairs into an airplane at the top of “28 Hours/Wherever We Are,” for example, can be difficult because prior to the song, the chairs are strewn across the stage and there are only about 10 seconds of music to make the change happen.

“When we were rehearsing it, it took us a week to assemble the first plane,” Farhadi said. “The first day that they taught the plane movement, my brain short-circuited. I was so lost.”

And if it’s not the set pieces that need to be changed, it’s a performer’s costume and props. In Farhadi’s case, he might have a jacket on in a scene, before having to take off the jacket and grab a flashlight. Thirty seconds later, he’s ditching the flashlight and putting on a hat.

“That’s happening at any given moment of the show, somebody running around to make some transition happen,” he said. “That language, it took some understanding and it took some practice, but what you come to learn is that the show really moves as a unit.”

The pace at which the performers are moving echoes the pace at which the residents of Gander had to move once the plane people arrived, Farhadi said, and the way the cast learns the show emphasizes community and coexistence.

“Come From Away” was also a chance for Farhadi, a first-generation Iraqi and Afghan American, to portray his heritage on stage. One of the characters he plays, Ali, is a Muslim man who faces discrimination from the residents of Gander, his fellow plane people and airport security, even after he’s spent a week in the community.

Farhadi said one thing he loves about Ali and the thing he thinks Ali represents in all Muslim Americans is continually having to be the bigger person and choose grace and a high road of community and companionship in the face of vitriol thrown at him.

Before stepping into Ali’s shoes onstage, Farhadi spoke with family members and friends about their experiences post-9/11.

“For the majority of Muslim Americans, the repercussions of 9/11 and the extent of the destruction of 9/11 does not end on 9/11,” he said. “Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians throughout the Muslim world lost their lives in the military response to 9/11, including in my mother’s home country of Afghanistan. That hangs over my head with this subject matter just as intensely as the tragedy of lives lost on the day of the event.

“Every member of my family lived in fear after 9/11 because not only were we mourning the loss of life, of our friends and loved ones and of people that we cared about, but we were also in fear of the retaliation and the response from other people.”

Experiencing what Ali and other Muslim Americans face eight shows a week can be draining for Farhadi, who said he has to prepare himself to engage with that moment night after night. It helps that the “Come From Away” cast and crew have created a safe working environment, and he knows everyone on stage has his back during those scenes.

Farhadi also sees the scenes during which Ali faces discrimination as learning opportunities for audience members, no matter their background.

“Performing that moment every night is a moment of severe discomfort and trauma, and it’s hard to engage with but the cool thing about ‘Come From Away’ is that it asks everybody in the room to engage with it in the same way,” he said. “I take pride in the fact that the discomfort that I feel doing that moment and the tension that I feel doing that moment is being felt by the audience, because the trauma of being in that room and being under that spotlight and being scrutinized in that way is not something that everybody gets to feel, certainly not white audiences. So I take pride in the fact that for one minute of the show every night, I am able to put everybody in the room, regardless of background, in the same shoes that myself and so many other Muslim Americans have been in where they have been scrutinized and othered by their community, and share that discomfort with the audience and hopefully take that with them to inform their behavior in the future.”

Rather than see these moments as laborious, Farhadi said he feels lucky for the opportunity to use his lived experience to inform the story he tells on stage.

“I am blessed to play a part in a show, doing what I love, living my dream and through my art, sharing a piece of my experience that will hopefully stay with people,” he said. “Being able to do both of those things and to share this while also living my dream, doing the thing I set out to do, that’s a blessing.”