Remarkable true story behind musical Come From Away, coming to Canberra Theatre Centre

But on the north-east tip of North America, at the same time as heartbreak and tragedy played out in New York, an incredible display of kindness was happening on the island of Newfoundland.

Known as "the rock", Newfoundland is so remote that there are no crickets, porcupines, skunks, snakes or deer. There are 100,000 moose, however, as well as some of the kindest people you will ever meet and an airport that, when it was built in the town of Gander in the 1940s, was the largest in the world.

Gander International Airport was designed for aircraft to refuel when travelling across the Atlantic. But as aviation technology improved and refuelling at Gander was no longer necessary, discussions moved towards removing the airport. Then September 11 happened.

The events that followed changed the lives of thousands and would inspire the musical Come From Away, which lands at the Canberra Theatre next month.

While writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein originally planned on Come From Away being a production used in Canadian schools, it has gone on to win numerous awards, including a Tony for Best Direction of a Musical, since it debuted a decade ago.

And yes, it's a musical that starts with the news of September 11. But at its heart, Come From Away is the remarkable true story of how Gander welcomed thousands of stranded people with unimaginable kindness.

Claude Elliott heard about September 11 just like everyone else around the world - through the news reports that started almost immediately after the first plane hit the Twin Towers.

At first, the then-mayor of Gander didn't think anything untoward had happened - New York is a busy place and a crash didn't seem unbelievable. And then the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

"You knew that was not normal," Elliott says.

"At the time, we weren't sure that we were going to play a role until the US decided to shut down their airspace. Canada agreed to take all the aircraft that were in the air. Once that happened, we knew that we would be getting aircraft, because once you get over halfway across the Atlantic, the nearest airport [is] Gander.

"That's why we're called the Crossroads of the World."

By the end of September 11, 38 planes, carrying about 7000 people from 92 countries, had landed at Gander International Airport - almost doubling the local population of 9000.

On the ground, the community was jolted into action. But in the air, many were still unaware of what was happening.

Marion Bradley was a flight attendant on Continental 5, which had departed London's Gatwick airport destined for Washington, DC. They had been in the air for about two hours when the captain called the crew to the cockpit to inform them that there had been suspected terrorist activity in New York.

"He wanted us to remain on high alert in the cabin, and not to mention it to any of our passengers," Bradley says.

"We had to look at it as if anybody and anything could have been considered suspect at that time. We could have been a target ourselves.

"We did not inform anybody on our aircraft what had occurred until we had landed in Gander."

For Kevin Tuereff, the first indication something was wrong was a sudden drop in elevation, two hours into the flight.

Tuereff and his then-partner were on Air France flight 004 travelling to New York - on the way home to Austin, Texas - after a holiday in Paris. They knew it was too soon for the flight to land, and when they checked the inflight GPS, they noticed they had started to head north.

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"A little while later, the captain came on first speaking in French ... but he used the word 'terrorism' in English," Tuereff says.

"He then came back on in broken English and said due to a terrorist attack in the United States, we'll be landing in Gander. Now, I didn't know if Gander was in Iceland, or Canada, or where, but about an hour or so later, we descended onto this giant rock."

The "plane people" - or as Newfoundlanders called them, "come from aways" - would spend hours stuck on the tarmac at Gander International Airport. Confined to their planes, they waited in the hopes that the US airspace would open sooner rather than later. When it was accepted that it would be days before they could fly again, passengers disembarked one plane at a time, in the order that they arrived. For some, it had been 25 hours since they first stepped onto their aircraft.

As passengers passed through the small terminal, they saw a map on the wall with the words "You are here" written in marker over Gander.

"You're always excited to see somewhere new when you arrive in a city, and I was looking around and everyone looked like zombies," Bradley says.

"I didn't realise why, because I hadn't seen a television yet. I hadn't seen why the pictures [of September 11] would have impacted so many people."

There are only 500 hotel rooms in Gander, all of which were reserved for flight crew so that they could rest before flying again. Everyone else was taken to one of the many community spaces that had been converted into makeshift shelters.

People were piled into school buses, not knowing where they would end up, with only their carry-on luggage.

"We headed out to a community college and slept on the floor with our fellow passengers," Tuereff says.

"When we arrived, they had televisions on. That was the first time we had seen images of the attacks on the World Trade Center. It was a good 12 or more hours after it happened that we saw that."

Food was provided, as were any other necessities - medication, toiletries, clothing, nappies - all of which were donated by the people of Newfoundland, under the guidance of Elliott, as well as other mayors on the island. The local hockey rink was then turned into a makeshift cool room to store all the food.

"Every community has a disaster plan. But nowhere in that plan did we have something saying what to do when 7000 people stop by for five days," Elliott said.

"But the greatest asset any community has is its people. And when your people are willing to help, there's not too much that you can't do."

Gander resident Beulah Cooper was at home when the local branch of veterans' organisation the Royal Canadian Legion called on her to help make sandwiches. She hadn't yet heard the role Gander and the surrounding area was playing, but with no questions asked, she made a tray of sandwiches and delivered them to the legion. It was then she discovered what was happening, and decided to stay and help.

"First thing I said was thank God they're coming here because I know they will be looked after," Cooper says.

As passengers started arriving in the early hours of September 12, Cooper saw one woman crying from exhaustion. That's when she decided to take people to her home so they could rest and shower. Over the next few days, she would make several trips back and forth to her home, transporting 'come from aways; in need of sleep. It was during this time she met Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, New Yorkers stranded in Gander while their son - a firefighter - was missing in the Twin Towers.

"I wanted them to come up and stay at my place, but they didn't want to leave the legion because they were afraid of missing a phone call," Cooper says.

"I eventually got them to come up and have showers - Dennis came up and when he went back, Hannah came up. And after Hannah had a shower, we drove around town a bit and talked. We're still friends now."

Cooper stayed with Hannah O'Rourke as she waited for a call that didn't come. When the O'Rourkes eventually returned to New York, they discovered their son died responding to the Twin Towers.

For the five days the plane people were stranded in Gander, they wanted for nothing.

"There was a tragedy happening at one end of the world. And there was all this love and compassion happening at another end of the world," Elliott says.

"I think most of the passengers were just overwhelmed because they had never seen this before. They had never seen complete strangers taking them into their homes, giving them their cars to drive.

"One lady was walking down the street with a baby in her arms and another lady came up and gave her a stroller. She said here, put your baby in the stroller and I don't want it back. They're the memories that we all have as a community."

Then there were the international phone calls. Tuerff's flight alone - of which there were 170 passengers - ran up a CAD$13,000 ($14,574) long-distance phone bill. When passengers offered to pay for it, the people of Gander simply said, "You would have done the same".

"It was the first time I had to rely on the kindness of a stranger to give me a pillow to lay my head on," Tuerff says.

"These people were opening their homes to strangers, they were providing food, taking sheets off their own beds, giving rides, providing phone calls - everything that one wouldn't expect. That was the issue when I finally got home - I asked myself 'Gosh, would a small town in Texas do the same?' And I wasn't sure."

When 7000 people arrived unexpectedly at Gander International Airport, they did so as strangers. When they left five days later, they did so as friends.

"When they left the legion to go back, we all sang at the bar 'For he's a jolly good fellow'. There weren't many dry eyes that went out of that door," Cooper says.

For some - like Cooper and Hannah O'Rourke - the time created friendships that have now lasted more than two decades. For others, it was something a little more.

People who were seated at opposite ends of the plane at the beginning of the trip were suddenly cosied up on the flight home, according to flight attendant Bradley.

"We did have more than one couple on our return flight - people that hooked up there in Gander," she says.

"People started talking and they bare their souls in circumstances like that. As flight attendants, we call it jump seat therapy, because for some reason, when we're flying in the middle of the night, things come out that normally you would never talk about.

"And that happened for quite a few couples. They weren't sitting together initially, but on the way back, they were like teenagers."

It was this flight that birthed one of the more memorable lines in the musical Come From Away.

Nick and Diane Marson, who met at Gander and have since married, were one of the couples acting like teenagers on their flight back to America. While offering refreshments on the plane, Bradley made a quip to the new couple, which inspired the line "Hot towel? Hot towel? ... Cold towel?"

Many of the lines from Come From Away came from the hundreds of interviews writers Sankoff and Hein conducted on the 10th anniversary of September 11. When Tuerff, for example, described landing in Gander, as "All I could see were trees and rocks and nothing", those words ended up in a song.

Tuerff, Elliott, Hannah O'Rourke, Nick and Diane Marson all made it into the musical. Meanwhile, Cooper's experience was combined with that of school teacher Diane Davis, for the character of Beulah Davis. Together - along with the rest of the musical's 12 characters - they are a representation of the experience of 16,000 people.

It's an experience that has tied two cities together in history. And the musical is not the only evidence of this.

In 2016, Gander was sent a section of the steel from the World Trade Center as a thank-you for taking care of the plane people.

Passengers and crew of Delta Flight 15 also established a scholarship for the students of Lewisporte Collegiate (high school) in Newfoundland as a way of thanking them for their warm welcome. It started with $CAD15,000 ($16,768) in donations. It is now reportedly worth more than $CAD1.5 million ($1.68 million) and has helped more than 340 students.

And, on the first anniversary of September 11, Tuerff started Pay It Forward 9/11, in a bid to promote random acts of kindness.

"My company here in Austin had 40 people, so I decided to close the doors of our company, and handed out $100 bills to my staff and asked them to go out, and do three good deeds for strangers," he says.

It has since spread across the world, with people pledging every September 11 to spread random acts of kindness in honour of the people of Gander and remember the lives lost on September 11.

At its heart, that is the legacy the people of Gander have left on the world - kindness.

"That can become contagious," Elliott says.

"Even though we may have differences of opinions on a lot of things, being nice to people is one thing we can all do.

"You don't have to agree with me or I don't have to agree with you on your religion, or your political affiliation or anything. But if you want something to eat, I'm going to give it to you. If you want to drink, I'll give it to you. Because I look after you as a person, not what you support."

Come From Away is at Canberra Theatre from June 8 to July 9. For tickets go to canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

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