Come From Away
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50 free Come From Away trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Come From Away turns one of the kindest episodes of September 2001 into a fast, foot-stomping musical. When US and Canadian airspace shut, 38 airliners carrying thousands of travellers were sent to Gander, a small town on the island of Newfoundland, and the locals fed, housed and befriended them for days. A small cast plays everyone, switching between islanders and visitors with a change of hat or accent. This quiz covers the show from every side: the characters and what happens to them, the songs, the real residents and passengers the writers interviewed, the airport's surprising history, and the route the production took from a student workshop to Broadway, London and a filmed version. It is written for fans who know the cast recording by heart, for anyone who has just seen a touring or local production, and for quiz hosts planning a Broadway round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a miss still leaves you with a good tale to pass on.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01To become honorary Newfoundlanders in Come From Away's bar scene, stranded passengers must kiss which kind of fish?
A cod
A cod, often a frozen one, is held up to each newcomer's lips in the real screech-in ceremony. Only a native Newfoundlander can officiate at a proper one.
Q 02In Come From Away, Gander's Claude is sitting in which Canadian coffee chain when he first hears of the 9/11 attacks?
Tim Hortons
Tim Hortons, the chain a hockey player co-founded in Ontario, is where the news reaches Claude. Newcomer Janice is the one who brings it to him.
Q 03In Come From Away, which rare apes do Bonnie and her husband Doug discover in the hold of a grounded plane?
Bonobos
Bonobos, two of them, were the rarest animals stranded in the holds, alongside pets including an epileptic cat with its medicine strapped to its crate.
Q 04In Come From Away, what becomes of passengers Nick and Diane after meeting while stranded in Gander?
They got married
They got married, and the finale brings the couple back to Gander for a reunion ten years on. The real Nick and Diane met on a diverted flight and slept in the same shelter.
Q 05Which streaming service released the filmed stage version of Come From Away a day before 9/11's twentieth anniversary?
Apple TV+
Apple TV+ bought the film in April 2021, weeks before it was shot on Broadway in front of an invited audience of 9/11 survivors and frontline workers.
Q 06Beverley Bass, the pilot whose story is told in Come From Away, was the first female captain at which airline?
American Airlines
American Airlines hired her in 1976 as only its third female pilot and made her a captain ten years later. That same year she led its first all-female crew.
Q 07Which Canadian prime minister gave a speech from the stage before a Broadway performance of Come From Away?
Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau addressed the audience on March 15, 2017, three days after opening night. Jean Chrétien, in office when the planes landed, had praised Gander at an anniversary service there in 2002.
Q 08In Come From Away, the gay couple stranded in Gander with Nick and Diane both answer to which first name?
Kevin
Kevin is the name both men share, so the script tells them apart as Kevin T. and Kevin J. The strain of the week pulls their relationship apart by the end of the show.
Q 09Screech, the drink downed before kissing a fish in Come From Away's bar scene, is which kind of spirit?
Rum
Rum from Jamaica goes into every bottle of Newfoundland Screech. The name began as slang for almost any cheap, strong liquor, moonshine included.
Q 10In Come From Away, stranded passenger Hannah spends days trying to phone her son, who works in New York as what?
Firefighter
Firefighter is the job that fills Hannah with dread, and it bonds her to a Gander local whose own son does the same work. The real Hannah's son was killed responding to the attacks.
Q 11In Come From Away, Claude runs Gander's emergency response to the stranded planes while holding which local post?
Mayor
Mayor was the office the real Claude Elliott held for years, and he watched himself on stage five times before the Broadway opening. He says the show speaks for the whole town.
Q 12In Come From Away, which striking workers agree to pause their dispute so stranded passengers can leave the airport?
Bus drivers
Bus drivers were mid-strike when the planes landed, leaving thousands with no way off the airfield. Claude agrees a truce with their union leader, Garth, to get people moving.
Q 13In Newfoundland speech, the phrase that gives Come From Away its title is a label for what kind of person?
An outsider
Q 21Plans to shoot a feature film of Come From Away on location in Gander were scrapped because of what?
The pandemic
The pandemic ended that plan, so the producers filmed the stage show itself instead, giving work to more than 200 theatre and film people while Broadway was dark.
Q 22In Come From Away, wary passenger Bob is sent into Gander backyards to collect what for a community cookout?
Grills
Grills are what Bob is told to take without asking, and he fully expects to be shot as a thief. Every homeowner he meets turns out to be friendly and glad to help.
Q 23Which Canadian husband-and-wife duo wrote the book, music and lyrics of Come From Away after interviews in Gander?
Sankoff and Hein
An outsider, meaning any non-Newfoundlander, is a come from away to islanders. The screech-in ceremony exists to turn one into an honorary local.
Q 14Before long-range jets arrived, airliners crossing the Atlantic routinely landed at Gander's airport to do what?
Take on fuel
To take on fuel, airliners used Gander because it sits close to the shortest route between New York and London. Longer-range jets ended most of those stops in the 1960s.
Q 15Come From Away was nominated for the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical but lost to which show about an anxious teenager?
Dear Evan Hansen
Dear Evan Hansen won six Tonys that night, more than any other production. Come From Away took home one of the seven it was up for.
Q 16Which opening number of Come From Away introduces the people of Gander on the morning of September 11, 2001?
Welcome to the Rock
Welcome to the Rock takes its title from the nickname of the island of Newfoundland. The townspeople describe everyday life there, then hear of the attacks over the radio.
Q 17In which Come From Away song does pilot Beverley look back on her career and the barriers she broke?
Me and the Sky
Me and the Sky is drawn entirely from the real Beverley Bass's life story. The stage character around it also borrows moments from other pilots grounded at Gander.
Q 18In Come From Away, Diane, who meets Englishman Nick while stranded in Gander, is flying home to which US state?
Texas
Texas was home for the real Diane too. She and Nick were on the same flight from London and were billeted together in a fishermen's hall outside Gander.
Q 19In Come From Away, Beulah and Annette ready which kind of building, their own workplace, to shelter stranded passengers?
A school
A school is where the two teachers work, so they turn it into a shelter. Across the real Gander area, homes, churches and halls were opened to travellers in the same way.
Q 20Gander locals in Come From Away, like their real counterparts, gave the stranded passengers which collective nickname?
Plane people
Plane people is what the town called its unexpected guests. About 6,600 passengers and crew had landed in a place with fewer than 10,000 residents.
Sankoff and Hein spent almost a month in Gander around the tenth anniversary of the attacks, and came home with more true stories than one show could hold.
Q 24In Come From Away, Janice is brand new to which job in Gander on the morning the planes begin to land?
Reporter
Reporter Janice blends two real Gander broadcasters. One of them went five days without sleep while fronting a dozen live shows on the local cable channel.
Q 25Beverley Bass was flying a Boeing 777 from which European city when US airspace closed on September 11, 2001?
Paris
Paris was her starting point. Her jet then sat on the Gander tarmac for 28 hours before anyone could get off, a wait the show turns into a song.
Q 26Which director won Come From Away its only Tony Award in 2017 and later filmed the stage show for streaming?
Christopher Ashley
Christopher Ashley won for his direction on a night when the show lost in its six other categories. He had first staged it in California two years earlier.
Q 27Which actress earned a Tony nomination for playing pilot Beverley Bass in the original Broadway cast of Come From Away?
Jenn Colella
Jenn Colella created the part at the first California staging in 2015 and stayed with it on Broadway for two and a half years, doubling as Gander local Annette.
Q 28Canada's effort to land hundreds of diverted flights on 9/11, including those sent to Gander, had which operation name?
Yellow Ribbon
Yellow Ribbon brought between 225 and 240 aircraft down at 17 Canadian airports. It also marked the first time Canada had ever shut its own airspace.
Q 29The London production of Come From Away was named Best New Musical in 2019 at which British stage honours?
Olivier Awards
Olivier Awards judges also honoured the show's music, sound design and choreography, a far bigger haul than its single win at the Tonys.
Q 30Which Canadian airport was the only one to take in more diverted flights than Gander on September 11, 2001?
Halifax
Halifax took in the most flights of any Canadian airport, though Gander is by far the smaller place. Planes from Europe were steered away from Toronto and Montreal as a security measure.