Cyrano de Bergerac Tickets

After winning the 2020 Olivier Award for Best Revival in London and playing acclaimed runs across the U.K., the James McAvoy-led production of Cyrano de Bergerac, directed by Jamie Lloyd, comes to New York. Get Cyrano de Bergerac tickets on TodayTix.

Cyrano de Bergerac is a play adapted by Martin Crimp from Edmund Rostand's same-named 1897 play. The title character is based on a real-life author and swordfighter from the 17th century, who had a witty way with words. Among his real-life acquaintances were his cousin Roxane and her husband, the Baron Christian of Neuvillette, who was a soldier alongside Cyrano.

In Cyrano de Bergerac, they're reimagined as (non-related) members of a love triangle, in which Cyrano pines for Roxane but believes himself unlovable, though he's intelligent. Christian also falls for her and, unaware of Cyrano's feelings, asks him to help him woo her. Cyrano, believing he'll never have Roxane, agrees to write love letters to her on Christian's behalf, allowing him to express his deepest feelings without fear.

This plot remains the same in Lloyd and Crimp's adaptation, with the exception of its setting. This Cyrano de Bergerac isn't a period piece — McAvoy and the cast appear in something close to street clothes, including rap and spoken word poetry in their retelling of Cyrano's story. Sword battles and rap battles happen alongside each other in Cyrano de Bergerac off Broadway.

McAvoy first starred in Lloyd's Cyrano de Bergerac in 2019, earning an Olivier Award nomination. The play had a return engagement in London and a limited run in Scotland before coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Get tickets to Cyrano de Bergerac in New York on TodayTix.

What to Watch For

• James McAvoy isn't the only Cyrano taking the world by storm this year. Peter Dinklage starred as the nobleman in Cyrano, the 2022 film based on Erica Schmidt's musical adaptation of Rostand's tale.
• Jamie Lloyd's production of Cyrano de Bergerac gets rid of one major element of Rostand's original: Cyrano's nose. The real-life Cyrano had a large nose, and in Rostand's play, he thinks he's unlovable because of it. In Lloyd's production, the exact quality about himself that Cyrano is insecure about remains vague.
• Cyrano's nose isn't the only major change that Lloyd and Crimp made to the original play. They didn't see it as a period piece, but a timeless tale of objectification — as Cyrano glorifies Roxane so much that he feels like she's on another level — that can be mapped onto any time period. So Lloyd puts his characters on stage in black leather and has them perform Cyrano's story with modern poetry and rap.
• McAvoy has noted in an interview, though, that the poetry and rap aren't too different from Rostand's Alexandrine verse. Both forms of writing keep a steady rhythm and beat, moreso than everyday prose (though this adaptation has some of that, too, complete with modern slang).
• Cyrano's star-crossed love for Roxane is the main theme of Cyrano de Bergerac, as is that of Roxane and Christian, but Lloyd's adaptation explores the relationship between Cyrano and Christian more deeply, too. "If I had to spend all my time loving a woman through a man who loved her and who loved him back, I would have to love him, too," McAvoy explained in an interview.