This is Broadway Sandwich. We're hanging out with your favorite Broadway performers
to find out what they do in their few short hours sandwiched between their
matinee and evening performances. Join me as we find out what makes up the meat
in this Broadway Sandwich.
We're at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater where the matinee of Come From Away
is just about to end. Come From Away is the true story about a tiny town in
Newfoundland in the days after 9/11. The people in town opened their arms and
homes strangers in a time of fear and tension.
The result is an incredible story of kindness and generosity. This cast of
only 12 actors portray over 30 roles in the show. The cast was amazing. I just
love that there wasn't one star. I loved how they flip flopped with their role. Today
we're meeting up with Caesar Samayoa.
Ceaser's two main characters are Kevin J, a man who just wants to go home, and Ali,
an Egyptian Muslim. Caesar! Heyyy. How was your show? Amazing.
So hot!
It's burning hot. But it feels great.
It's literally the dead of summer. So we're going to teach a class right now . Yes
I teach a good three to five times a week. It's one of my passions. And you
don't find that tiring with eight shows a week? I find it energizing.
I find this show energizing.
Hi. How are you? Thank you so much for
being here. I'm so excited to be teaching you all. So we go
one two three four stomp. You can repeat. I'm an Islander I am an Islander
YES!!!
Thank you so much. Thank you thank you for coming to this class and really
giving it your all. It is such an honor to share this material with you.
Okay so class is done. yes it's really inspiring. I'm so glad you came.
Absolutely. Where are we gonna go? I'm thinking of taking you to Gotham Market.
I just want to dig in. Go for it.
So before you took the show to New York you took it to Gander and performed it
there. Yeah. What was that like? It was one of the best experiences of my life.
you're playing this show for 5,000 people and when you think there is only
a little bit over 7,000 people at that point that so everybody gave theaters oh
yeah or the hawk it was in ice in the ice hockey rink that we talked about but
it became this huge rock concert because you would say the name Beulah and Beulah
would be sitting right there in the second row in the whole place and we
start the show and there's this amazing drumbeat that's kind of like the heart
of the show and the first thing that we all say in the show is I'm an Islander
as soon as we said that the whole audience just went crazy I mean they
went crazy people just left up and you saw everyone of us to start crying like
down the line and it was amazing it was completely life-changing a couple of
minutes left before the show do you want to see the dressing room we have so much
memorabilia from like everything we have fan art we have quilts we have anything
in print that was done about our show yeah or about a cast member it's all
leading all the way up to our dressing rooms so this is my dressing room
it's noise they're so calm this is beautiful window that looks over all the
theaters here you and Chad Chad Kimball oh yeah
most beautifully decorated dressing room at scene in eight episodes you win the
award now do you nap on that I love this little guy is they can exact replicas of
my costume most of the characters in the show if not all are based on real
characters or amalgamations of different characters put into one
right yes and so one of your characters Kevin is based on an actual Kevin yes
Kevin yeah that's him. And that's him your dear friend and that's Jen Colella
with Captain Beverley Bass which is one of the characters that she plays too.
this
is an officer's World Trade Center pin yes and my PD tie clip that a detective
she gave it to me she wore it at a funeral of one of her
of her officers. It's overwhelming sometimes. It just makes me think about how
much we're reaching people with this show each one of those pieces of fan art
each gift that we give that someone kind of showing their love for this show and
the story and I hear it often over and over again that people finally have
something else to think about. They think about the goodness of humanity rather
than the terror that happened that day. I love this because this is all of our
fables from every production.
So, total how many come from always will there be?
five
This is amazing. When we when we did the concert in Gander this was over the town
hall and the mayor took it down mayor claud, and now we have it backstage. We
always have a light on it and it's amazing it's just a reminder of you know
what we're doing here. Yeah it's it's all real and then these other flags these
are all outlying towns. They started sending us their flags, as well people
towns that had COME FROM AWAYS. Yeah, so, the people are know people were not
from Newfoundland who are not born there are known as COME FROM AWAYS and these
are the different towns that had COME FROM AWAYS during that week.
You have to mention those trees. Yes my favorite, favorite part of any kind of tour. I love
showing people our stage. This the Schoenfeld theater is so beautiful. Look
how close the people are. I know it's almost like a black box field but you have 1,080 seats in here.
It's a lot of people fitting but it's one of the smaller Broadway
houses right? Yeah, it its. It's amazing. We're directed to talk
to people like talk to people to them like look in their eyes and talk to them
and tell the story and we're standing on a turntable yes so this whole disc
rotates. This whole disc rotates throughout the show for different scenes and chairs
basically chairs and two tables create everything that happens on this stage
what you see on this stage right now is what we have to tell the story and we
have our incredible band on either side of the stage
it's like it's such an important part of the the story. I love the details in
everything is this color here this blue that's taking up
yeah our entire set represents the color of the sky in New York on 9/11 a
beautiful beautiful day
Caesar this has been so wonderful spending time with you
and getting to hear about how special in this show is we are huge fans. We're
just thrilled for everything you're doing -- but you have to do your second show.
I do! Do you hear it? We're getting ready to go.
So I'm gonna get out of here. See you
soon. Thank you so much!