Matthew Murphy
Marika Aubrey as Beverley Bass in "Come From Away"
Tuesday is opening night for "Come From Away" at Bass Performance Hall — a show whose significance to Fort Worth is twofold.
For one, there's Beverley Bass — one of the show's main characters whose real-life counterpart currently lives in Fort Worth. Born in Fort Myers, Florida, Bass (no relation to the prominent Bass family in Fort Worth) graduated from TCU in 1974 and went on to become the first female captain for American Airlines. She was in the skies during 9/11, her plane among those diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, in Canada — the setting that would later inspire the Broadway musical, "Come From Away."
Now retired, Bass has been kickin' it in Cowtown, with plans to see every performance of "Come From Away" at Bass Hall, says actor Marika Aubrey, who plays her. What's more, "Come From Away" marks the return of the venue's Broadway at the Bass series, which took a hiatus for over a year when COVID-19 shut down theaters around the world.
So, for Aubrey, who went back on tour for "Come From Away" earlier this month, Fort Worth's production of "Come From Away" will be extra special. She chatted with Fort Worth Magazine about her unique relationship with Bass, what she's most looking forward to about coming here, and the one line audiences should listen for during the show.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Fort Worth Magazine: With theater shut down for as long as it was, what was this past year like for you?
Marika Aubrey: Well, we had a break of 567 days without the show. We had been in Dallas, and we played to 3,000 people. Sold out crowd, huge show. Beverley Bass was actually in the audience there, and we had a big reception afterwards, and then the next day, we found out that we were done. At that point, none of us, of course, like everyone around the world, could have predicted how long it would go on for. I mean, I didn't even take home most of my belongings from the tour truck. I just took a couple of things, thinking, "I'll be back in a couple of weeks."
What's interesting is that we now come back to this story that is a microcosm of that 18 months; what these people in Canada went through in five days; and how much change, renewal, loss, and discovery that they had meeting people from around the world at a time when it was very scary. So we, I think, come back to the show with fresh eyes and with a lot more to bring to it after this, what we've all been through.
FWM: When did y'all officially get back onstage?
MA: That would've been in Memphis. Our opening night was Oct. 5, and it was a very emotional night, just to feel the audience reactions and to feel like we're back in the theater doing our jobs. You could feel a collective catharsis of everyone just being relieved and happy to be back and appreciating arts again.
FWM: "Come From Away" will mark Broadway's return to Bass Hall, too. How cool is it to get to experience that reopening night over and over with different audiences?
MA: It's a huge honor, and I don't think it's anything that we take for granted. Just like our audience is, we're so hungry and grateful to be back and ready to work, and so wanting to do every show and make it the best show we can make it.
Knowing that some of the people have bought tickets for our show two years ago and are only getting to see it now, it's really special. Everything is much more heightened at the moment in a really good way.
FWM: You play Beverley Bass, who's from Fort Worth. In what ways did you prepare for this role? Did you get to meet her in person beforehand?
MA: Yeah, absolutely. We all get to interact with our real-life counterparts. It's a very unusual thing in any theater art, but particularly musical theater, to be playing someone who's real — and not only real, but walking, talking, alive, and living in Fort Worth, Texas.
It's just so funny that if I have a question, I can just text her. I read something on Wikipedia as I was coming up to the show. I was doing it, just trying to go back to the beginning and approach it freshly, and just did a little Google search, and it came up on her Wiki profile, and I was like, "Is it true that you studied interior design in college?" I just texted her because I was curious, and she's like, "Yeah, it is true."
So it's really funny that I have that direct line to the character I'm playing, and fortunately we get along really well. It's been a real treat to build a friendship with her because, who would have ever thought that a girl from Australia that wanted to be on Broadway would ever meet a pioneer pilot from Florida and Texas? Our lives are so different and would never have intertwined were it not for the magic of "Come From Away."
FWM: Do you know if she'll get to see the show here in Fort Worth?
MA: She's coming to every single performance. She's seen the show 158 times, and she's coming to all eight, I believe, of the Fort Worth shows because she's got friends and family booked in for all of them. She's not really tired of seeing it. Bev just still is quite enamored of the fact that the show exists. She genuinely enjoys seeing it every time and noticing different things. I can only imagine how bizarre it is to see a life story reflected upon a big stage.
FWM: I have to ask this, too, because it's the question everyone asks in relation to 9/11 — where were you when it happened?
MA: I'm originally from Australia. I was in college, and it happened at the opposite end of the day for us. So we were all getting ready to go to bed ... one of my parents rang very distressed because my older brother had actually been living in New York and working in the financial district. He'd flown home on one of those same flight numbers only two days before he'd gotten the connecting flight over to the west coast to come back to Australia.
So, for our family, we did have a real sense of, "Oh, goodness." Had timing been slightly different, we would've been very directly connected to what happened. And as it was, Australia had a very, I guess, familial or brother-like relationship to what happened to America. It was on all of our TV screens just as it was here, and there was definitely that collective fear of, what if a plane's going to go into the Sydney Opera House? Or what if we didn't know how far-reaching this terror was going to go? Everyone was scared and constantly watching those images, so it did puncture the culture very similarly.
FWM: Now you get to tell Beverley's perspective of 9/11 with "Come From Away." Have you been to Fort Worth prior to this production?
MA: No, not Fort Worth. I'm so excited. I've been given all the hot tips from Bev. I've got to go to the Stockyards, and then she's given me good restaurants I've got to go to. I've gotten inside tips on where to eat and what to do from her, so really looking forward to it.
FWM: Anything else you'd like to share with the Fort Worth audience?
MA: There's a line in the show that I have the honor of singing that says, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out your window, you won't want to miss this. We just entered Texas." Sometimes when I'm in Texas — and look, I haven't done that many shows in Texas because it got shut down — but it can often get a bit of a round of applause because it's so exciting to land the plane specifically in Texas. On Tuesday night, I will be very excited to sing that line and land that plane in Texas, and I just look forward to seeing you all.
"Come From Away" runs through Sunday. More information is available here.
