Irene Sankoff
BIOGRAPHY WORKS SOURCES
If you’re familiar with the Broadway production Come from Away, you are familiar with Canadian born composer-lyricist Irene Sankoff. Brought up in Ontario, she and her partner, now her husband, David Hein, met at York University and moved to New York City after graduating in 1999. She studied acting and performed while he worked at a music studio in the city. Sankoff and her husband returned to Toronto and became involved in the Fringe Festival eventually presenting a play called My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding. It toured successfully in Canada where it drew the attention of theater producer Michael Rubinoff. He suggested the idea of a show based on the stories of residents from the town of Gander, Newfoundland, where 7,000 airplane passengers were stranded following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Sankoff and Hein, in writing the book, words and music for the show became Canada’s most successful team with the successful Come From Away. They have won two Drama Desk awards for Come from Away including Outstanding Book of a Musical and Outstanding Lyrics, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Other awards include a Tony award, 5 Outer Critic circle awards, 4 Helen Hayes awards, 4 Gypsy Rose Lee Awards,4 Los Angeles Drama Critic Awards, and 3 Toronto theater critic awards.
Their projects at the present time include Canada Nice a mini-musical commissioned by the government to celebrate Canadian’s many assets, Rollergirl based on a graphic novel and from a true novel written by Katie McKenna, How to get run over by a truck.
Sankoff’s degrees include a BA in Psychology and Creative Writing from York University and an MFA in Acting from Pace University. Honorary Doctorates in Human Letters from Pace and Memorial Universities were bestowed on Sankoff. She is very involved with children diagnosed on the autistic spectrum and is a civil and animal rights advocate. Her husband David Hein has written books, has a weekly radio show, several PBS documentaries and wrote Broadway to Main Street: How Show Tunes Enchanted America.