Photo: The cast of ‘Come From Away’
There are musicals that entertain, musicals that impress, and then there are musicals like ‘Come From Away’ — shows that seem to catch an audience slightly off guard by how completely they pull a room together.
Thingamajig Theatre Company opens its 2026 Summer Season tomorrow Friday, May 29, at 7pm with the Tony Award-winning musical at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts, launching another summer of “Broadway in the Mountains” with a production that arrives carrying both enormous reputation and remarkable emotional immediacy.
Set in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland in the days following September 11, 2001, ‘Come From Away’ tells the true story of nearly 7,000 stranded airline passengers unexpectedly diverted to a community of just a few thousand residents. What emerges is not a solemn historical pageant, but something quicker, funnier, stranger, and more deeply felt — a portrait of ordinary people improvising kindness in real time.
Directed by Andrew Barratt Lewis with Music Direction by Dr. Sloane Artis, Thingamajig’s production leans fully into the muscular ensemble storytelling that made the musical an international phenomenon. Chairs become airplanes, bars, buses, and waiting rooms in seconds. Characters appear and vanish almost mid-sentence. Conversations overlap. Music barrels forward. The effect is less like watching a conventional musical and more like being swept into the collective memory of an event.
Tommy Paduano anchors the production with an easy warmth as Claude, the town’s overwhelmed mayor, while Georgia Fender brings sharp intelligence and emotional gravity to Beverly Bass, the pioneering American Airlines captain suddenly stranded far from home. Logan Pitts lends Bob both humor and quiet vulnerability, and Darcy DeGuise’s ‘Beulah’ provides some of the evening’s most grounded and disarming moments.
Elsewhere, Sydney Hoel, Koko Waller, Bear Manescalchi, Trevor Brown, Samantha Luck, Cameron Vargas, Victor Fajer, and Sophia Montoya-Suson navigate the production’s rapid transformations with impressive precision and stamina, supported by ensemble members Katelyn Bowie and Marlo D’Ascenzo, with Michaela Winter serving as swing.
What surprises many audiences about Come From Away is how alive it feels. The show moves with the velocity of remembered experience; funny one moment, devastating the next, often without warning. And while its subject matter may suggest solemnity, the evening is filled with humor, music, stubborn humanity, and the strange awkwardness of strangers learning how to care for one another.
“Every opening night carries excitement,” said Producing Artistic Director Tim Moore. “But there’s something uniquely electric about opening the summer with this show. You can already feel audiences leaning into it during rehearsals. It reminds you how immediate theatre can be when a room full of people is experiencing the same story together.”
Opening Weekend performances on both Friday and Saturday evening will include post-show talkbacks with the company. Friday evening will also feature a special Opening Night celebration welcoming audiences back for the summer season.
Performances continue throughout the summer in rotating repertory with Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Company’ and the classic musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’.
Opening Weekend performances are expected to fill quickly.
Tickets are on sale now at pagosacenter.org or by calling 970.731.SHOW (7469).