Romance And Swordplay Sweep The TN Shakespeare Co. Stage In CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Tennessee Shakespeare Company brings the classically exquisite story of Cyrano de Bergerac to its Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage, featuring an expansive design team and cast of AEA actors that includes TSC's Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary in the title role. Running February 2-19, Cyrano is directed by Atlanta's Amelia Fischer and is generously sponsored by Pat and Ernest Kelly.

TSC is using the early English translation of Brian Hooker of the 1897 French masterwork by Edmond Rostand, who based his fictionalized heroic comedy on the historical Cyrano of the 17th Century. This five-act translation is edited by McCleary, with Stephanie Shine and Fischer, into two full acts.

Cyrano de Bergerac offers lyrical poetry, mythic romance, modern comedy, and tearful joy in a heartful spectacle ideal for all ages. A daring Gascon swordsman and romantic poet, Cyrano has loved deeply only one woman all his life - the exquisite Roxane. As Cyrano considers himself an uncommonly ugly due to the "grotesque" size of his nose, he hides his love. When a new recruit in the Cadets appears (the handsome Christian), love at first sight strikes between him and Roxane. Promising Roxane to protect her young love, Cyrano offers to assist the linguistically-challenged Christian in the act of wooing - both in letters and, as it turns out, in person in the dark of night. This, no doubt, will be the closest Cyrano may get in his life to achieving his love, he feels. Roxane falls for Cyrano's verses, but she believes them to be Christian's, whom she rapidly marries prior to his and Cyrano's departure for war. In the siege of battle, Cyrano keeps his promise to write Roxane letters on behalf of Christian (without his knowing) by crossing enemy lines. The letters prompt Roxane to visit the battleground, where tragedy awaits. Fifteen years later, during autumn in a Convent's yard, one of literature's archetypal romances is brought to ever-lasting poetic life.

This is the play that inspires a revolution of the heart and a glimpse of its grace.

Alongside McCleary, the cast of Cyrano de Bergerac features TSC veterans Marquis Dijon Archuleta (TSC's Romeo in Romeo and Juliet) as Valvert/pastrycook/cadet/a Sister, Paul Bernardo (Iago in Othello and Cassius in Julius Caesar) as Comte de Guiche, Cara McHugh Geissler (Biondello in Taming of the Shrew and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet) as Ligniere/Lise/Sister Claire, Lauren Gunn (most recently Lady Macbeth) as Carbon/Montfleury/a sister and the Assistant Fight Director, Stuart Heyman (a TSC founding member recently seen as Lafew in All's Well That Ends Well) as Ragueneau, Michael Khanlarian (a TSC founding member recently seen as Macbeth) as Le Bret, Kellan Oelkers (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry VI) as the orange girl/a cut-purse/a meddler/first cadet/Capucin/Sister Marthe, and Nicolas Dureaux Picou (Romeo, Malcolm in Macbeth, Lords Byron/Lovelace in Ada and the Engine) as Christian, with TSC newcomers Amaree Cluff as Roxane and Allison Hesselberg as the Duenna/Mother Marguerite/second pastrycook/cadet.

Director/Fight Director Amelia Fischer (TSC's assistant director for Hamlet) has worked as a director, actor, fight director, and intimacy director for theatres from Washington D.C. to Washington, including Untethered Theatre Project, The Alliance, Actor's Express, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, Horizon, Synchronicity, Gainesville Theatre Alliance, Rice University, and Lamar University

"After ten years, I am honored to be reunited with my Tennessee Shakespeare community to direct this story of audacious idealism and beauty," says Fischer. "Our playwright's goal as a dramatist was to give 'leçons d'âme' or 'lessons for the soul.' He gave us Cyrano and Roxane's poetic, heartfelt, and sometimes violent navigation of the differences between image and soul. I cannot help but be drawn to these two epic characters as they struggle to forge and recognize a connection that resonates as true.

"Given our culture's ever-growing obsession with the curated presentations of people on social media, the time seems fertile for people to hear this play. Our souls need to re-learn how to love ourselves and each other, and I look forward to sharing this world of romantic deeds and reckless dreaming with our Mid-South audiences."

In a speech to the Académie française in 1903, playwright Edmond Rostand spoke about "panache," a word and theme that weaves throughout Cyrano de Bergerac and informs the spirit of TSC's 15th season: "A little frivolous perhaps, most certainly a little theatrical, 'panache' is nothing but a grace which is so difficult to retain in the face of death, a grace which demands so much strength that, all the same, it is a grace ... which I wish for all of us."

TSC's production will be set in Rostand's intended Paris and environs of 1640 and 1655. The design team includes Jeremy Allen Fisher (lighting), Kristen Fischer (props), Amy Forester (scenic), Joe Johnson (sound), Ellen Ring (prosthetics), and Allison White (costumes). The production stage manager is Desiree Ruiloba (TSC's I Dwell in Possibility: Emily Dickinson Emerges), and the assistant stage manager is Pedro da Silva.

"Our audiences have been asking for this play since we launched TSC, and then we have had to postpone this production for the last two years due to the pandemic," says McCleary. "Cyrano de Bergerac is a deep investment of resources, time, and passion. We wanted to make sure patrons felt good about gathering to attend.

"This is the play I've pursued since I was a teenager and has kept me in love with theatre along with Shakespeare. Rostand revealed early to me the fantastical scope that an act of theatre could provide to us all. His portrait of a man with a physical and social handicap who nevertheless knowingly fights 'in vain' appealed personally immediately to me, and still does. I have tremendous compassion for the clown who is courageous both of heart and mind. My early-life understanding of him was his revelation that Love's greatest manifestation might be sacrifice. As I have grown much older, and as I have come to see the role of Roxane age so well over the decades, my understanding today has shifted to picturing Love as Grace, a mystical one at that. That's why we have Amelia Fischer at the helm and Amaree Cluff as our Roxane."

Cyrano de Bergerac's discounted ($20 tickets) Preview performance is Thursday, February 2 at 7:30 pm. Opening night is Friday, February 3 at 7:30 pm with the price of tickets including a post-show reception with the actors. Subsequent performances are on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, and on Sundays at 3:00 pm.

Thursday performances on February 2, 9, and 16 are Free Will Kids' Nights when up to four children 17 years and younger may attend for FREE when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult Guardian.

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