Theatre Severn – 15 to 17 October 2026
Shrewsbury Musical Theatre Company perform Come From Away this October, with our Head of Service, Dr Sarah Browne, as Musical Director. Every note is played live by musicians who all started the same way your child would.
Come From Away tells the true story of the week that followed 11 September 2001, when American airspace closed and 38 aircraft were diverted to the small town of Gander in Newfoundland. Almost seven thousand passengers landed in a community of around ten thousand people, and the town took them in, fed them, clothed them and kept them company until the skies reopened.
It is a story about ordinary people deciding to be useful, and the score carries that. Irene Sankoff and David Hein wrote it for a folk band rather than a pit orchestra, drawing on the traditional music of Newfoundland. Fiddle, whistle, accordion, bodhran, mandolin, guitars, bass, keys and drums all sit in the sound, and the band is part of the staging rather than hidden away.
That is the part we want young musicians in Shropshire to notice. The people making that sound are not a recording. They are players who learned an instrument, joined an ensemble, got used to reading a part under pressure, and kept going.
44
specialist teachers across the county
1,500
lessons delivered every week
11,000
young people taught each year
148
schools and colleges we work with
Watching a musical played live is the clearest argument we have for learning an instrument. The band responds to the room.
It follows a performer who takes an extra beat, it lifts when the audience leans forward, and it makes each night different from the last.
None of that happens with a backing track, and none of it happens without players who have put the hours in.
Those players are not from another world. They learned an instrument, joined an ensemble, got used to reading a part under pressure and kept turning up. That route is open to any young person in Shropshire, through our lessons in schools, our county bands and orchestras, and our bursary scheme.
Some of the musicians on that stage started exactly where your child is now, holding an instrument for the first time and wondering whether it will ever sound like music.
There is no shortcut, but there is a well worn route, and every step of it is available here in the county.
1
Choose an instrument
Strings, brass, woodwind, guitar, drums, keyboard or voice. Instruments can be hired while a young person works out what suits them.
2
Weekly lessons
Taught by our specialist teachers in schools across Shropshire, with
bursaries available so that cost is not the reason a child misses out.
3
Join an ensemble
Bands, orchestras and county groups, where players learn to hold their own line while listening to everyone around them.
4
Perform
Concerts, festivals and theatre. The same skills that carry a county concert are the ones a pit band needs on opening night.
Three of the people bringing this score to life at Theatre Severn, and the
routes that took them there.
Sarah is Head of Shropshire Music Service, where she leads a county-wide team dedicated to helping children and young people discover the joy, confidence and connection that music can bring. She has spent 30 years working as a pianist, vocal teacher, conductor, arranger, educator and academic, teaching and leading in schools, colleges and universities.
Sarah holds a PhD in Musicology and has published widely on the power of music. Her book Staging Rebellion in the Musical Hair was released in 2022. She is also an advocate for music’s wider social value having represented the UK on the ‘Hear Her Song’ project at the United Nations which was designed to help girls and young women feel empowered in the music industry. Her work has helped broaden participation and strengthen musical progression for children and young people in urban and rural communities alike.
Sarah has been musical director for many productions, first picking up the baton at the age of 16, and has thoroughly enjoyed working with the talented cast of Come From Away. She particularly wants to thank Lana, Laura and Ed for the role they have played behind the scenes!
Caroline moved to Shropshire in 2005 to teach the violin to pupils at Shropshire Music Service. She also currently teaches at Concord College and performs regularly with local professional music groups. She has performed and toured with several major British orchestras following postgraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she was able to study for a PGCE in Specialist String Teaching in conjunction with Manchestra Metropolitan University.
Caroline formed the folk band ‘Dicey Reilly’ who captivated audiences between 2012 and 2022 in and around the Birmingham area. The love of folk music persists with Caroline directing the Shropshire Music Service World Folk Ensemble, which meets weekly and is open to all young string players in Shropshire.
Quirky fact: Caroline once travelled from Birmingham to Loch Ness with pianist John Starkey with the sole intention of raising the monster!
Jacob Potter grew up in Shropshire learning music, picking up drums at the age of 11 and quickly becoming passionate about rock and heavy metal. He has Irish heritage on all sides of his family so also had an interest in traditional Irish folk music, and he combined his interests by forming a Folk/Rock band with his brother and father called ‘The Bowsies’.
Jacob received his bachelor’s degree in Popular Music from Leeds Conservatoire in 2021 and returned to Shropshire a few years later to begin teaching drums with Shropshire Music Service. Over his training and career, he has developed a broad experience in many styles of music and been involved in recording, performing, writing, and of course teaching music. As well as currently teaching drums with Shropshire Music Service and playing in his band, Jacob is writing a conceptual progressive rock album which he plans to record and release in the near future.
Come to the show, watch the musicians as closely as you watch the cast, and then have the conversation on the way home about which instrument they fancy trying. We will take it from there.
Come From Away – Shrewsbury Musical Theatre Company
Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury – 15 to 17 October 2026
Director: Nick Jones – Musical Director: Dr Sarah Browne
Shropshire Music Service is proud to be part of this production. Page sponsored by Clickingmad Ltd.