CYRANO CAST LIST
ANDREW MCGINN* ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Cyrano
JEN TAYLOR*......................................................................................................................... Roxane
COLIN BYRNE*....................................................................................................................Christian
BRIAN GUNTER* ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Le Bret
LEIF NORBY*.....................................................................................................................De Guiche
DARIUS PIERCE*............................................................................................. Ragueneau and others
CHRIS HARDER*.............................................................................................. De Valvert and others
GAVIN HOFFMAN*............................................................................................. Ligniere and others
DAMON KUPPER.................................................................................................Desiree and others
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
DIRECTOR’S NOTES By Jane Jones
I have been asked to
reflect upon Cyrano
and why this character
has managed, time and
again, to capture the
hearts of thousands of
people for so many,
many years. When
Chris Coleman first offered me this job, I
immediately remembered my own
personal introduction to the story. I was a
freshman acting major at Virginia
Commonwealth University and a note
was left for me at my dorm early in the
fall semester. It was an invitation and
ticket to attend a performance of Cyrano
de Bergerac at the Virginia Museum
Theatre the following evening, from a
very attractive graduate student (an older
man!). “Meet me on the terrace
afterwards and we can howl at the
moon.” Of course I went, and sat
enthralled as the magic of this story
unfolded before my eyes. I had never
experienced anything like it. The
romance was almost unbearable for me ...
and the attractive graduate student was
playing Christian! That night after the
show, overwhelmed and trembling by the
mystique and glory of the performance, I
met him on the terrace of the museum
and we literally waltzed by the light of a
full moon. I remember feeling alive and
grown up in a way I had never imagined.
I fell in love that night. With the legend of
Cyrano, with the seduction of a life in the
theater, with the poetry and language of
the classics, and certainly with that man.
As I prepared to direct this production,
I heard from many of my friends:
“Oh, that’s so and so’s favorite play.” It
happened so many times, I took notice.
Cyrano is one of those male characters
that kidnaps many a wayward heart;
especially for male character actors. It
is a “bucket” role, as we like to say in the
biz. With that in mind, I reached out to
several theater artists who had expressed
enthusiastic ardor for this unlikely hero.
What follows is the writing of just such a
fan. I think he says it beautifully:
I first encountered Cyrano when I was 11
years old. I used to call my best friend ‘big
nose,’ inspired by Monty Python’s Life of
Brian. Close to the end of high school, I
realized how much this hurt his feelings.
I’d heard there was a hero in a play with
a big nose, so I bought him the play as a
gift. I wanted him to know he was a hero
to me.
What I found in Cyrano was the kind of
hero I had always hoped I would be. One
who is first a defender – not an attacker
– and one who shared with me the
debilitating fear of rejection.
In Cyrano, I was captivated by a hero
that didn’t know he was one. As a young
actor, I was also utterly formed by the
extraordinary scale of his poetry, imagery
and passion. He himself is the first to say
that acting must be played truthfully and
without pretense. That cue from his very
first scene sets up a man who means what
he says, and means extraordinary things.
I’m sure so many of us feel that we are
not capable of such extraordinary feeling
and expression, but Cyrano demands it
of us. That value has completely informed
me throughout my life in the theater;
in my own work and in what I want
from others.
Selflessness is uncommonly rare in
most of our heroes, yet Cyrano’s quest is
entirely for Roxanne’s fulfillment. The
string that makes it ring so true, and
tragic, is that his selflessness is linked
to his extreme doubt in himself. The
great defender of beauty despises his
own image. It’s awful that self-hatred
is something that contributes so much
to his greatest virtue of selflessness, but
that’s what makes Cyrano fit into our
flawed world – and