Here is the thing about Come from Away: you really can’t mess it up. The 2015 musical about the 38 planes diverted from the US airspace during 9/11 and the 7,000 people stranded in the bumfuck nowhere town of Gander, Newfoundland, is wonderful. Delightful and oh-so-Canadian strangers opening their doors to these stranded newcomers is a microcosm of hope in the story of a nation made paranoid and afraid by tragedy. It is a musical that never fails to remind me I have a soul.

I cannot help the welling up that happens when I watch Come from Away. The Seattle Repertory Theatre’s new production of the beloved show is no different in that regard, but it has changed a few things. Not all of them are for the better. 

Written by Irene Sankoff and David Heinie, Come from Away first premiered at the Rep a decade ago. It’s a big source of pride for the theater—and Seattle. Which is understandable. After that run, the show went off to Broadway and award-studded acclaim. The Rep celebrated this in its different staging. 

Instead of happening on September 11, 2001, the show introduces its story—none of it actually altered—as a 10-year reunion. “Welcome Back Come from Aways,” yellow banners proclaim in the Rep’s lobby and then above the stage, which now looks like a Gander high school gym. As the audience filed into their seats, the actors walked on stage toting casserole dishes for a potluck banquet table. It’s a reunion for Seattle audiences, too. “We loved it during the first run so much we had to bring our kids,” one audience member said. 

Another replied, “Ten years ago I came to the opening and I brought a friend. She came back to see it three times.” 

But this wasn’t the Come from Away they knew. In director Brandon Ivie’s fresh take—one of 23 different reinventions of the show running nationwide this year—every actor plays an instrument. Meant to mirror the Newfoundland tradition of “kitchen parties,” the actor-musician twist aims to bring the audience into the story more. It’s a lot to ask of the 12 actors already tasked with quite the job. 

Historically, Come from Away has sparse staging. It relies on its few actors to play both the islanders of Gander and the “plane people” diverted from the skies to Newfoundland, plus any filler characters. The set is mostly 12 chairs maneuvered (by the actors!) to be plane seats, or Tim Hortons chairs, or the rows on the school buses transporting the newcomers to the gym floor they’ll sleep on that night. Ivie’s set is more real, his props more fleshed out than in the original. He complicates the original version further by adding in instruments—guitars, violins, a big ol’ drum that makes your heart skitter during the opening banger, “Welcome to the Rock.”

At times, the instruments felt clunky and awkward, especially in the beginning. I wasn’t sure what they were adding aside from a whole lot to keep track of for the actors. But, in sequences like “Blankets and Bedding”—when the islanders scramble to find supplies for their unannounced guests with countless trips to Shoppers—the instruments aided the frenzy. I hadn’t realized before how nonstop the pace of Come from Away is. There’s an urgency I could feel only through watching handoffs of accordions and violins. 

A few moments even benefited from the instruments. Hannah (Corinna Lapid Munter), a mother stranded in Gander, hasn’t heard any word from her New York firefighter son. She won’t leave the phone in case he calls. During “I Am Here,” Hannah sings about her helplessness. In Ivie’s rendition, Munter plays the piano, spun around by other actors as she sings. It’s a manifestation of her inner turmoil, the haunting upper notes ringing more true when played by her fingers rather than the backing band. 

Similarly, “Stop the World,” the love song between Diane (Vickielee Wohlbach) and Nick (Rob Burgess), is made even more poignant when Nick grabs the neck of Diane’s acoustic guitar and holds down the strings to play the chords while she strums. Perhaps, though, it’s simply the charisma Wohlbach and Burgess bring to their characters. 

As the “plane people” become more changed by the experience, and more open to Newfoundlander life, they gain their own instruments—they are joining the kitchen party. This is not especially clear since everyone is playing both Newfoundlanders and plane people and the story gets muddied by all that aforementioned frenzy. By the end, [spoiler alert] when everyone returns home to a country far different from when they left it, they lose their instruments. They stare at their empty hands as they croon “Something’s Missing.” Looking around at our country today, I think whatever it is might still be gone. 

Ivie’s stab at a new Come from Away is bold, and it often works, but it does not make an already perfect show any better. If I were seeing this version of Come from Away for the first time, surely I would have no notes. As it is now, the Rep’s Come from Away distracts a bit, but this story, this charming cast, and this reminder—especially in times like these—that humanity is, at its core, good, will bring you to tears. And then to a standing ovation.

See Seattle Rep’s Come from Away at Bagley Wright Theater, Nov 28–Jan 4.