Just Do the Right Thing: David Girolmo on Portraying the Mayor of Gander

“The people of Gander did what they needed to do in the circumstances.  They were not the kind of people to turn their backs on others in need. I think COME FROM AWAY is important for all of us to see; it helps us remember that kindness exists in the world and we can be that for people we meet along the way.”

Actor David Girolmo is talking about undertaking a role debut as Claude Elliott, the Mayor of Gander, Newfoundland, in the Tony award-winning musical COME FROM AWAY which will close out the MSMT season, running from August 5-22, 2026.

Girolmo, who is a beloved presence on the Pickard stage, has returned to Maine this summer to play John Hancock in the recently completed 1776 and join a star-studded cast of twelve for COME FROM AWAY.  In the intervening year since he last appeared in Maine in THE IRISH AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY, he has directed a new production of that play at Chicagoland’s Porchlight Theatre and reprised his role as General Waverly in WHITE CHRISTMAS at the Paramount.

He recalls being in New York while performing WAR PAINT on Broadway when he saw COME FROM AWAY for the first time and remembers the emotional impact it had on him. “For me one of the things that moves me most is the way the Newfoundlanders just kept going for five days straight without sleep, doing what they had to do to help.  Near the end of the musical, Claude does go home and it’s only then he starts crying.  He has not allowed himself to cry until then. Now they must return to their regular lives. “It is over,; there is a sense of loss, of something missing.  During the crisis the entire town had a sense of purpose, and the traumatic experience was shared with others.  Now they have to resume their regular lives.”

Asked what makes COME FROM AWAY even more intense because the audience never sees the horror of September 11th, he muses for a moment and suggests that “The authors [Irene Sankoff and David Hein] knew we all knew and had experienced what had happened; we didn’t need to see it again. Instead, there is a sense of the tragedy lurking in the background, carried in the pain of everyone on stage.”

Reflecting on his own personal experience of 9/11, Girolmo remembers that he was working at McCormick Place on a trade show– “one of those places perhaps seen as a bastion of in Chicago capitalism. When I got to work, there were screens playing images of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. They sent everyone home and we weren’t called back for the rest of the week – until the planes started flying again.”

Girolmo mentions the sense of authenticity in COME FROM AWAY’s book, derived, in part, from the interviews the authors did, collecting stories from the people of Gander to shape their narrative. He recounts how he researched his character from the countless online videos that exist of Claude Elliott. “I get him.  He comes off as a guy who just wants to do the right thing.”

 “My character, Claude, is the Mayor of the town, which has only about 10,000 inhabitants – not much more than the number of people who arrived on the planes. The airport is a big presence in the life of the town.  It is huge and obsolete, and opening of the play, he is dealing with a bus strike. It is always hanging over the heads of the townsfolk when the government will tear it down. Claude is often asked, and he keeps saying,’ Not today.’ At the opening of the musical, he is dealing with a bus strike. Claude is someone who does a good job of listening to everyone and marshalling them to do their tasks. He keeps the ball rolling, and he gives time updates in the play.”

Traditionally, and in MSMT’s production, directed by Mark Johnson, the staging is minimalist, using  chairs in varied configurations and  afew significant props.  The twelve actors, who play multiple characters and change personae with just a hat or accessory or prop change. Asked how an actor manages to make those character changes effective, Girolmo replies, “You have to think about it beforehand – create a story for each – where they come from, what they do. Luckily for me, the guys I play are all remarkably different. I play, for example, the Mayor of Appleton, who has a totally different voice, and one of the plane passengers who is a bit of a racist, though he has a couple moments of realization at the end which are somewhat redeeming.”

Of the Sankoff-Hein score, with its roots in folk-rock and peppered with Celtic idioms, Girolmo says that it is very complex to perform.  There are numerous textured ensemble passages “with dialogue underneath and back and forths between direct address to the audience and stepping back into the character, between singing and speaking.”  Fortunately, Girolmo says, the twelve-member cast “is absolutely fantastic. These guys are some of my dearest people, people with whom you would kill to do one show and here we get to do it all together!”

So, not only can the MSMT audience look forward to seeing an ensemble of true stars, but they can also hope to be uplifted by the experience of COME FROM AWAY. Girolmo observes that the characters on stage are all transformed in the course of the one hundred minutes. “At the end of the show, the plane people donate more than $60,000 to the town of Gander in appreciation for the assistance they have received. And on the tenth anniversary, the plane people come back to visit and continue to do so until today. Lasting connections have been made; everyone has been changed by those five days. For the people of Gander, they retain a quiet sense of pride in knowing that, against all odds, they did what was right.”

That lasting impact on the characters of COME FROM AWAY is something that David Girolmo hopes carries beyond the footlights. “I hope every audience member comes away understanding that each of us has the opportunity to make someone else’s life better. We can all do that – not for remuneration or applause – but simply because it is the right thing to do.  I hope our audiences will leave the theatre wanting to be kind to the next person they see.  Kindness enriches your life as well!

 

Photo courtesy of MSMT

COME FROM AWAY runs from August 5-22, 2026, at MSMT’s Pickard Theater on the campus of Bowdoin College, 1 Bath Rd., Brunswick, ME

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