VIDEO: Watch COME FROM AWAY's Joel Hatch Give a Moving Speech at Show's First Night Back

Broadway's Tony & Olivier Award-winning musical Come From Away resumed performances last night at Broadway's Schoenfeld Theatre. Original Cast Member Joel Hatch, who plays Mayor Claude Elliott in the musical based on a remarkable true story, made a brief curtain speech at the end of the show thanking the audiences for supporting Broadway.

The show, which canceled performances from December 31st due to Covid-19 infections from within the cast, reopened last night, Friday, January 7th.

After the curtain call, Joel Hatch spoke to the audience, thanking them for attending the show, as well as thanking the crew, house staff, swings, and understudies, all who have been crucial parts of the show, especially during this unprecedented era of performing theatre during a pandemic. He says in the video, "We have a phrase that we've carried with us throughout the last five years. It's called "paying it forward." Tonight, I want you to pay it forward. When you leave the theatre, tell your friends, loved ones...to come see theatre."

Come From Away began performances on February 18, 2017, and officially opened to critical acclaim on March 12, 2017, at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (236 West 45th Street), where the show continued to play to standing- room-only audiences until it was forced to shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 12, 2020, the evening of its third anniversary on Broadway. The show tells the remarkable true story of 7,000 stranded passengers and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. Cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.