Houston’s Syma Zerkow in Newfoundland.
Courtesy Syma Zerkow
The Newfoundland church that housed Americans who couldn’t return to the U.S. after 9-11.
Courtesy Syma Zerkow
This week, Stages begins preview showings of “Come From Away,” the Tony-winning musical based on the events that took place in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, Canada after 9/11. When the Twin Towers fell and the US airspace was shut down, 38 planes en route to the U.S. carrying 7,000 people were forced to land in the province, and the temporarily homeless passengers had to spend spend nearly a week being taken care of by hospitable Canadians.
Houstonians will be reminded of this display of international brotherhood at the heart of “Come From Away” as the production is returning to the city, which this time is running in the more intimate confines of Stages through Oct. 18.
When: Friday-Oct. 18
Where: Stages, 800 Rosine
Details: $99 and up; stageshouston.com
One person who will be attending the official opening night on Sept. 24 remembers those days quite well. She is Scranton-born, Houston-based, retired Houston Public Library employee Syma Zerkow, who was on one of those planes with her husband, Walter, who passed away last year at age 73.
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“My husband and I had been in London, and we were on our way back to Houston,” recalls Zerkow, 75, by phone from Silver Spring, Md, where she is visiting. “We were Continental 5, which was a nonstop flight from London to Houston. Before we left the airport in London, my husband changed into shorts because he knew that when we got to Houston, it’d be over 80 degrees, and he wanted to be comfortable, right? That was not a good move.”
Zerkow remembers landing in Gander International Airport, where the entire flight stayed on the runway for 24 hours until passengers from other planes deplaned. “They pretty much filled up Gander,” she says. “Plus, they apparently only had one or maybe two rolling stairs that you could actually use to deplane with, because they weren’t set up to handle all these big aircrafts.”
Zerkow says the townspeople couldn’t have been more helpful and comforting. “They got the stairs over to our plane and came on board the next morning, and first asked if anybody needed any medications or supplies of any sort,” she says. “And, then, they came back with Subway sandwiches, because the locals had gone into the little Subway sandwich shop there in Gander and spent all night making turkey sandwiches so we would have food to eat that day, because the airplane had run out of food. So, that was really a wonderful example of how the Canadians treated us.”
The Zerkows and their fellow passengers eventually got off, boarded school buses, and were sent to Gambo, another town an hour outside Gander, where they had temporary accommodations waiting for them.
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“We were part of the group that ended up at the church hall,” says Zerkow, “and they had the army cots that are like stretchers with just canvas and sticks to hold them together.”
They spent the next few days eating cereal for breakfast, and sandwiches made by the ladies from the church, watching the news. A toll-free phone was set up for people to call loved ones, while others went to the town library (located in a double-wide trailer) to send emails. A candle-lighting ceremony was also held for the victims. As Zerkow puts it, “That was a very harrowing time.”
Cut to the mid-aughts; some friends from Tacoma alerted the Zerkows of a stage musical they caught in Seattle. Back then, “Away” was going around the country doing tryout runs before its Broadway debut in 2017.
Says Zerkow, “Our friends saw the play, loved it, and immediately contacted us and said, ‘You gotta see this play. If you’re anywhere where it’s playing, go see it.’”
Fortunately, the play would make a stop in D.C., right when the couple would be in town for a family get-together.
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“We were coming up for one of the Jewish holidays and bought tickets for us and all of our family that lives in the D.C. area,” says Zerkow. “So, we sort of took up a whole row of Ford’s Theatre and saw the play there, which was lovely. It’s very heartwarming, you know. It takes a horrible, horrible time, and manages to find some love and redemption out of the Canadians’ response to our tragedy.”
Zerkow has seen “Away” twice now (the North American tour made a Houston stop in 2022), and confirms she’ll be there on Sept. 24. She’ll also be taking part in a post-matinee discussion/Q&A on Oct. 4. As a longtime, local arts patron who served as a producer (along with her husband) on past Stages productions (“Mostly, it’s just giving them money,” she amusingly admits), Zerkow is looking forward to seeing how Stages adapts this play, a much-needed, musical refresher course on how we should treat our friends and neighbors – especially those who were there for us during our time of need.
“I think it’s a very timely reminder of how important good relations and friendships are,” she says. “And it’s not all just quid pro quo, which unfortunately seems to be the attitude of our current leadership. But the Canadians really stepped up and they did, you know. They were not rich people. The people in Gander were lower middle-class, and they sacrificed a lot to help us out.”