Fort Myers Florida Weekly

COME FROM THE sky

“Come From Away” tours Florida



 

 

BEVERLEY BASS HAS SEEN Broadway musical Come From Away”

164 times.

By the time you read this, that number have grown.

She’s seen it in New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta.

She’s also watched it in Toronto, Canada; London, England, and Melbourne, Australia, to name just a few of the places she’s seen it staged.

When it plays in Fort Myers Dec. 14-19, Ms. Bass will see it three more times.

And she’ll enjoy, all over again, this delightful, heady experience of watching herself portrayed onstage.

It’s unusual for actors to play a role while that person is sitting in the audience, she notes.

“They don’t do that in ‘Hamilton,’” she jokes. “John Adams is not sitting in the audience, watching.

“It makes me proud; they honor me in such a beautiful authentic manner. You can’t help but be proud to see it, and how well it’s played out.”

And with five casts playing in four countries on three continents, that’s a lot of Beverley Basses.

“Come From Away” comes to Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall Dec. 14-19. MATTHEW MURPHY / COURTESY PHOTOS

“Come From Away” comes to Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall Dec. 14-19. MATTHEW MURPHY / COURTESY PHOTOS

“My poor husband, he doesn’t have just one of me, he has many of me,” she quips.

“The producers are wonderful. They fly us into all the major openings: Broadway, Toronto, London, Australia. We’ve been to (them all.)”

She’s hung out with six of the actors who’ve portrayed her onstage, she says.

“There’s a standby for each one as well,” she adds — more Beverley Basses.

Though the director, Christopher Ashley has told them not to copy her, they’ve picked up some of her mannerisms and speech patterns simply by spending time with her.

Marika Aubrey, who plays Beverley Bass on the U.S. tour, is from Australia.

“She has a beautiful Australian accent,” she says. “The poor girl has to talk like me onstage!”

Ms. Bass, who’s originally from Fort Myers, has been living in Texas for 50 years, though she also has a home on Pine Island.

The Tony-nominated musical is making a circuit through South Florida. Having already played Fort Lauderdale in early November, it’ll be at the Kravis Center for Performing Arts in West Palm Beach Nov. 16-21 and then at Artis—Naples Nov. 30-Dec. 5, before hitting Fort Myers.

“Come From Away” comes to Florida venues starting this month.

“Come From Away” comes to Florida venues starting this month.

Some have called the musical a 9/11 show, but it’s really about what happened after.

Ms. Bass, who was an airline pilot for American Airlines, was flying a Boeing 777 from Paris, France to Dallas, Texas the morning of 9/11 when she was ordered to land in the tiny town of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada. All non-essential aircraft were ordered from the sky by the FAA.

Ms. Bass’s plane was the 36th of 38 that landed there.

“We showed up in a town of 9,400 people, nearly 7,000 passengers and crew, and stayed for five days,” says Ms. Bass. “There wasn’t anything we needed that they did not get for us. It was the most beautiful display of humanity during the worst tragedy in American history.

“Come From Away” is a 911 story like no other.

“Come From Away” is a 911 story like no other.

“No mater what you were, your political party, your gender, your race, they treated everyone the same, which is what we all should (do, but don’t). They accepted everybody just the way they were. It was the best of humanity, in any sense of the imagination.

“The mayor, Claude Elliott, said it so perfectly: ‘On Day One we had 7,000 strangers. On Day Three we had 7,000 friends. And on Day Seven we said goodbye to 7,000 family members.’”

Lifelong friendships developed.

“Some of the people in Gander have been down in Texas and stayed with us,” Ms. Bass says. “I’ve been back six times. I love to go back. They had huge events planned for the 20th anniversary. But unfortunately, COVID changed that.

“We can’t wait to go back. It’s hard to get to. You can drive from Dallas to Tokyo in the time it takes to drive to Gander. It’s an island. It’s an all-day affair to get there, for sure.

“It’s like going back in time when nobody locked their house. They leave their keys in the car. It’s like going back to the ’50s.”

It was when Ms. Bass attended the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in Gander that she was interviewed by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, who went on to write the music, lyrics and book for “Come From Away.”

Even though the interview lasted for four hours, “I didn’t think much about it,” Ms. Bass says. “I went back to Texas.”

Four years later, she attended the world premiere.

“I didn’t know what we were going to see,” she says. “I went to San Diego and saw the show for the first time. It was so amazing, so beautifully scripted and well-written.”

It opened on Broadway March 12, 2017.

Ms. Bass realizes that some people may be hesitant to see “Come From Away,” as it relates to 9/11.

“It’s 100 minutes of the most unbelievably choreographed show you can ever imagine,” she says. “There have to be a couple moments of sadness, or it wouldn’t be a true story, which it is. But it doesn’t dwell in sadness, it moves to something funny or happy in the next line or the next thing they do onstage.”

And when it’s over she says, “everybody is on their feet. It’s not the obligatory standing ovation. Everybody is screaming, clapping. It’s an immediate standing ovation. It’s been that way at every city at every show. It’s incredible, it really is.”

Pioneer

Ms. Bass knew she wanted to fly planes ever since she was a young girl.

“I was 8 years old when I told my parents I wanted to fly,” she recalls. “I was obsessed with planes. I would beg anyone to take me out to Page Field. I’d stand by the fence and watch the…727s at night. And I remember looking at the airplanes and thinking, ‘Those guys have the coolest job in the world. I want to do that someday and fly the biggest jets you can fly.’ But (those jets were in) the military, and we couldn’t get in (as women).

“People had a hard time getting on board with me, but my parents supported me every step of the way. If I told them I wanted to wrestle alligators in the Everglades for a living, they would say, ‘That is great. You’ll be the best alligator wrestler!’ They were behind me.”

In 1971, Ms. Bass couldn’t get a job flying commercial planes. Her first job was transporting corpses. She’d have to step over the bodies to get to her seat, but didn’t care. She was just so happy to be flying.

“The corpses were silent,” says Ms. Aubrey, who portrays Ms. Bass in the U.S. tour. “She got to be independent, and she was autonomous in a plane, taking off and feeling in control: I’m 100 % doing the right thing in my life. It was a foundation for her to feel confident.”

Frontier was the first commercial airline to hire female pilots in 1973.

Ms. Bass was the third female pilot hired by American Airlines in 1976. Only 14 other women pilots were flying for the US airlines at the time, she says. Ten years later, she became American Airlines’ first female captain.

“It was based on seniority,” she says modestly. “I have a hard time thinking of myself as a pioneer.”

At 69, Ms. Bass is still flying, though now for a private company.

“I still absolutely love it,” she says, noting that she crews with “another guy retired from American.

“We get up above the clouds, look at each other and say, ‘Do you believe we still get to do this?’ Not many people get to say that at our age. I love every bit of it. I can’t wait to work. There’s a certain excitement to it. Every trip is different. Every airplane you fly is different. No two days are the same. You don’t walk into a cubicle to work.

“We have the best seats in the house. There is no better seat. There’s not a lot of people who do what we do, in the whole scheme of things.”

Her daughter, Paige Rogers, will soon join that small group. She’s currently in training at American to be a pilot.

“She’ll be flying the 737 out of LaGuardia,” her mother says proudly. “Isn’t that cool?”

Touching hearts

“The show is very cathartic,” says Ms. Aubrey. “It’s not a 9/11 show. It’s the 9/12 show. It’s really about an unknown chapter of a little patch of earth in Canada that did something extraordinary. It was an act of kindness and generosity when the world didn’t feel very kind and generous. That’s what makes this very humble story to endearing and fascinating and so eternal.”

Ms. Aubrey, who portrays other people, as well as Ms. Bass, has a solo in the show: “Me and the Sky,” which is Ms. Bass’s history, in song. (It’s also the name of a children’s book Ms. Bass wrote about her life.)

Portraying her is one of the greatest honors of her career, Ms. Aubrey says.

“At this time in our culture, we’ve got so many women trying to get into areas that are still male-dominated,” she says. “’Me and the Sky’ is their anthem. There is so much in the world that isn’t open equally to women.

“It’s an honor to honor her career, fantastic. I am proud I get to do it.

“Proud and terrified,” she adds, noting that the real Ms. Bass is often in the audience. She’s slightly more nervous on those nights, Ms. Aubrey admits. She knows she has a responsibility to do justice to her story.

“The oddity of seeing a Broadway musical that you star in must be dizzying,” she says. “Bev is so quiet; public speaking is not her first love, flying planes is. She’s quite in awe of what I do for a living. She says, ‘I don’t know you do that every night.’ I said, ‘Bev, you fly planes for a living!’ We’re in awe of each other.”

Ms. Bass hasn’t taken her up for a plane ride yet, but “I hope one day it happens,” Ms. Aubrey says.

The cast was performing to sold-out shows in Dallas in early 2020 when they were told on March 12 to shut down.

“We had 567 days away from the show,” she says. It was a sudden change from staying in hotels together and acting together onstage.

“There’s a wonderful line in the show. Bonnie says, ‘We all look the same, but we’re different than we were.’

“The Newfoundlanders felt irrevocably changed from hosting these people from all over the world. Sad and wobbly from going through it. As a company, we’re finding our feet, looking the same and feeling different. Mixed emotions. There’s huge elation, joy, and gratitude that we get to do this, and we’re finding our rhythm again.

“We’re not the same, we’re different than we were.”

Having commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and also having gone through a global pandemic, the cast finds that the lines hit differently and resonate deeper.

Despite the fact that audiences now wear masks, “We feel the energy,” Ms. Aubrey says. “The masks have not stopped them from standing up at the end and clapping and whooping and laughing.

“I find the message affirming: just get through this thing and make it as safe as possible for everyone. It’s very life-affirming to see this ocean of masks. It’s given us the freedom to come back to work and do this story.”

And they know the story touches hearts from the reactions they receive.

“I find it nourishing to look out (at the end of the show),” Ms. Aubrey says, “and see all these watery, smiling eyes.” ¦

In the KNOW

“Come From Away”

» When: Nov. 16-21
» Where: Kravis Center for
the Performing Arts, 701
Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm
Beach
» Cost: $33 to $84
» Information: 561-832-7469 or
www.kravis.org

» When: Nov 30 – Dec. 5
» Where: Artis—Naples, 5833
Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples
» Cost: $90 – $145
» Information: 239-597-1900 or
www.artis-naples.org

» When: Dec. 14-19
» Where: Barbara B. Mann
Performing Arts Hall, 13350 FSW
Parkway, Fort Myers
» Cost: $65.90 to $103.18
» Information: 239-481-4849 or
www.bbmannpah.com

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