Though performances remain dark during the coronavirus shutdown, Come From Away will get the film treatment. Entertainment One will produce a live capture of the musical by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, reuniting cast members of the Broadway production.
The performance will be filmed in May at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, where the musical opened in 2017 and continued to play up until last March (when all Broadway shows went dark due to the pandemic). It is expected to be released in September.
Christopher Ashley will direct the filmed version, reprising his Tony-winning work. He was slated to helm a feature film adaptation for the Mark Gordon Company and Entertainment One, as first reported back in 2017, though those plans have since evolved with the absence of live performance.
Come From Away tells the true story of 7,000 stranded air passengers during the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. The ensemble cast take on a variety of roles, from passengers to locals to airline personnel, to form a sense of community amid chaos.
The production features choreography by Kelly Devine and music supervision by Ian Eisendrath. The creative team also includes RadicalMedia, which will film the production, having previously worked on the captures of Hamilton for Disney+ and David Byrne’s American Utopia for HBO.
Exact casting has yet to be confirmed.
