Although many theatres across the globe remain shut down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the actions taken by Australian’s have met that major productions have been able to go forward with not only limited capacity but, in many cases, 100% venue capacity. This means that producers have been able to recommence their musical theatre tours, such as Newtheatricals, who were able to conclude their Melbourne encore season of Come From Away and have brought it up to QPAC’s Lyric Theatre, where the show held its first performance last night.
Ahead of the first performance, I was invited to a sneak peek of the show and had the opportunity to interview Come from Away Australia’s Musical Director Luke Hunter, who you may also see on stage at various points playing the keyboard, harmonium and accordion. I invite you to continue scrolling down, to read the full interview:
Tickets for Come From Away are available to purchase exclusively through the QTIX Box Office, either online or by calling 136 246.
So you have just concluded your Melbourne Encore season. How did audiences react the second time around, and are you excited about bringing Brisbane to ‘The Rock’?
Yes, we are. We are very excited to be here in Brisbane. I love coming here, and it’s one of my favourite theatres to play in, in the country. And Brisbane loves a musical and a good musical, and this is a really beautiful, wonderful piece of theatre. So I’m excited we get to share it with a whole other city.
And I think Melbourne really fell in love with the show, and so even though we had that long hiatus in the middle, I think they were excited that we were the first big piece of theatre that opened back up. And so a lot of the people that had seen it the last time came back, and people that hadn’t seen it before had another chance to see it. And it was interesting because the show’s about community and taking care of each other and looking out for people in need in times of crisis.
So it resonated in new and interesting ways, particularly in Melbourne, given the experience that we’d had in-between seasons. I think people saw parts of the show in a different light, given what had happened in the meantime.
On the note of the show’s hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, how did you keep yourself busy over that period?
I kept practising the accordion because that’s like a skill that you can’t let go for too long. So I was doing that, and we did bits of work on the show. There was a lot of planning around various scenarios on when we could open; we did some auditions over zoom during lockdown. And then I just tried to keep myself busy by learning new things. I learnt some new music software, I took some Spanish classes, and I cleaned every square inch of the apartment. And did a lot of walking. In hindsight, it actually feels like that whole time went very quickly, but in the time that it did drag on a bit.
Have there been any particular highlights touring the show so far?
I think one of the most special things about this show is that it’s about real people, and they’re still around and pre COVID they came. A lot of the original Come From Aways and Ganderites came to Melbourne and spent a week with us, seeing the show and getting to meet us and us meeting them.
And that was a real privilege because you don’t often work on a show about real people, and if they are, they’re usually not alive anymore. So to have not just one but 26 of the real characters with us was amazing. And it was amazing to see the similarities in the writing and the way that they described the events and how that’s reflected in the dialogue, almost verbatim sometimes was astounding to me that the way they tell the story is exactly the way that we tell the story.
And so that was a real honour and a real highlight. And I think we still hold on to that every time we tell the story where we remember that we’ve got friends on the other side of the world that we’re representing every night, and that’s really lovely to be a part of that family. They did really treat us like we were their family.
I think one of the things that’s really captivated me about the show is that the Ganderites and Come From Aways have remained continually engaged, even just sharing the news that this tour was coming to Brisbane. I received retweets and likes from people all the way over there.
Yeah, and that’s amazing too. They are exactly like they’re represented in the show. They’re so giving, and they’re so loving, and they’re so friendly and funny. I had so many offers of, we were told you have to come to Gander, like there’s no choice. And when you come, you call Diane, or you call Beulah, or you call Claude, and don’t book accommodation because that will be taken care of, and you stay as long as you want. It’s exactly the way that they took care of the come from aways in the show. I think we’ll have to all make that pilgrimage now because they’re our friends, and we have a special connection to them.
Well hopefully, by the time the tour is concluded, we can start travelling again.
Yes, that’s right. Yeah, I think that’s sad. I think some of them probably would have come here to Brisbane and visit us again on the tour. But unfortunately, it’s a little bit complicated.
But I think they still are very involved via the social media, as you said, they keep a very acute eye on what’s happening, particularly because we’re the only company able to perform at the moment. So it’s pretty great.
So with so many musicals on the market, maybe not now, but when the tour has started, what drew you to take on Come From Away?
I was really struck by how great a piece of theatre it is. I think it is so beautifully crafted and the story that it tells is moving and funny and warm and real. But also the way that it’s told on stage is so smart, the 12 actors and the eight musicians and straight through in a hundred minutes, which is unlike most big musicals that play, it was just unique and different.
And the first time I saw it in New York, I spent a hundred minutes wiping away tears and just being really moved by it. And I think all good theatre takes people on a interesting journey and this does, and it did for me. And I just really wanted to work on it. And musically it’s really unlike any other piece of theatre I’ve conducted before too.
We have Matt Horsley, our whistle player. Play 16 whistles, two Irish flutes, and Uilleann Pipes… that is not a chair that you normally book on a traditional piece of music theatre. So the ability for us to cross musical worlds, we have players that are doing their first piece of commercial theatre and we have players that are in more entrenched in the music theatre scene. And so we’ve been out to bring different groups of musicians together and we’ve learnt from each other and grown as a band together, over a period of time, and that was a real opportunity that it wasn’t just another show. It was something that we would really like, it would be unlike anything else and we would learn and I would be a better musician for it hopefully. So there was a lot of things that drew me to it. I knew as soon as I saw it that I was desperate to do it.
So what has been some of the highlights and challenges during your time with Come from Away?
The show is really fast paced, so it moves very quickly for the audience and for us. So it is a strap yourself in and go on a ride every evening. So that is definitely a highlight, but it’s also a challenge, there is no moment of rest. It’s a complicated thing to do every night, but also really rewarding. I had to learn the accordion of the 21 button accordion for the show, which is something I hadn’t done. So that was absolutely the biggest challenge and like a months and months of furious study to try and get that under my belt. I would say that’s absolutely the biggest challenge.
But one of the reward of it is that we’re up on stage with the cast every night and you feel the audience’s response to the show and you meet people that have seen the show and had such powerful, engaging reactions to the show, which is not something you get on every piece of theatre that you work on. And so to know that you’re a part of something really special and really wonderful and beautiful, that’s definitely a highlight, I would say for sure.
On the note of Come from Away being quite fast paced, is there anything special you think viewers might miss the first time that you think they should look out for?
Yeah, I think certainly the first time you see it, you just want to go on this wild ride and let the story take you over, and just marvel at the small acts of kindness and generosity that throughout the show. But if you’ve got a watchful theatrical eye then definitely look out for how many characters those 12 actors play, and how deftly they move from role to role just with our prop or our costume piece, or just the way they change their physicality. And look at the way those 14 chairs and those three tables become a bar, a plane, a bus, all in the space of a couple of seconds, that is still mind boggling to me how they do it. So I think the theatrical feat of what those 12 actors do is pretty special, so keep your eye out for that.
And also, I would say like if you’re someone that’s into that technical side of things that the lighting design is really, really beautiful, and the way it just draws your attention to the story that’s being told, focusing on one performer or two performers, and the shapes and the colours that it makes is really beautiful too. So there’s a lot to keep your eye on.
What is your favourite moment and favourite song from Come From Away?
I’ve got a few. I think probably my favourite song is this song called Something’s Missing, which is towards the end of the piece. And it just tells the story about the lingering effects of a major event that have happened. I think it always resonated with me, but it resonates more after the year that we’ve had, and there’s something really beautiful in the orchestration, the flutes playing and the way that the cast sing, it’s just a really special moment in the show, and I love doing it every night.
And then there’s a lot of moments that are really fun to do too, like going out and doing this, what we call the screeching, which is the ceremony that the Newfoundlanders put the Come From Aways through in the bar is really fun. It’s fun to go out there and we have a really good time as people kiss the fish and drink the screech and do all of that. It’s a really fun moment, I look forward to doing that every night, it’s really entertaining.
What advice would you have for those who are looking to enter the industry either as a performer, as a musician, as a creative?
Yeah, It’s tricky because I get asked this question from time to time. And I think there isn’t always obvious paths. I think people take different paths into the industry. I started as a performer before I was a conductor and that’s a different way in as a musician, it’s unique in a way. I think the best advice is if it’s something that you love doing, then do as much of it as you can. And that might be formal training for musicians and actors and for crew members, but it also might mean getting as much experience. I got heaps of experience doing amateur theatre and theatre at university in Melbourne. And I learnt as much on those shows about good ways to do things and ways of achieving things quickly as I have in my professional career.
So I think it’s about just getting as much experience as you possibly can, and meeting people that you like working with, like-minded people that you can create things with and you’ll learn on every job. And it’s not like a formal application process to get into the professional theatre world sometimes, but sometimes just making those connections and developing and fostering those relationships are the ways that unexpectedly you’ll find a way into the industry. So it’s about doing as much as you can and enjoying what you do and learning and being up for any challenge and seeing what path that takes you down. And I think that in a way that’s the, I had studied music before, but I’d never thought to be a musical director on a show, but it was from having those connections and having encouragement from other people that I found what actually was my true passion, which was conducting, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Also now there’s a lot of great formal training that is available to people and to seek that out and learn from the best, we have great training institutions now in Australia and a great one here at Queensland Con as well too, that produces some really, really high quality talent that are gracing professional stages all over the country. So there’s some really great opportunities here in Brisbane too.
