From the New York Times

Project Gutenberg’s complete text of the play.

An easily modified online etext at Classic Bookshelf.

eNotes has a downloadable enhanced .PDF file version.

Kingsbury 1898 edition, though not in alexandrines, does maintain the poetry of blank verse more natural to English.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater has an online guide to the play, with activities focused on a performance approach to the play.

Guthrie Theater guide includes extensive background on the historical and cultural context of the play, as well as a explanation of French drama traditions.

Trinity Repertory in Rhode Island has provided a 50+ page guide with extensive activities covering background, actor preparation, costuming and staging.

Utah Shakespeare Festival has an interesting online guide that includes three critical articles on Optimistic Idealism, Romantic Melodrama, and Heroic Comedy or Romantic Tragedy.

Bob Jones University has a small brochure overview.

Design a poster for the play Cyrano de Bergerac, using any scene or character monologue as the basis for your idea. To begin, look over each of the posters shown below. What do you learn about each show from the poster? Which posters are you most interested in? Why? Which poster makes you want to come see the show? What is the function of the poster in the artistic process? Create a poster you feel best represents the play, using any variety of creative materials. Include the following criteria on the poster:

• Name of Play: Cyrano de Bergerac
• Playwright’s Name: Edmond Rostand
• Director’s Name: Pick a director who suits style of your poster, living or dead
• Actors: Cast the main parts
• Website: Make up a creative choice

Select a piece of artwork inspired by the play and write a critical paragraph analyzing it. Your topic sentence should state clearly the effect of the artwork. The details you use in your paragraph should explain how that effect is created. Be sure to include title and artist (if known).

Wouldn’t Cyrano make a wonderful spokesman? With such style, he could lend his panache to certain products. Design a print advertisement for an appropriate product. Be sure to include some visual or verbal reference to the play.

Four Translations - Activity that asks students to analyze and compare four different translations of the same scene. Great way to focus on diction and syntax.

Act by Act: Study Questions and Writing Assignments. Also available as a Word document and as a PDF file.

Scene-by-Scene Discussion PowerPoint can be useed as areading check, a review, or talking points.

Plot Diagram in French -- interesting way to review and translate.

Essay Assignments for the Play As a Whole -- Collected from several sources.

Projects for the Play -- Eight creative culminating group projects.

Best worksheets from miscellaneous Teacher Materials

• Beau Geste
• Body Biography
• Creative Writing Projects & Rubric
• Cyrano Is...
• Essay Test
• Film Adaptation
• Illuminating Allusions
• Journals
• Les Précieuses
• Paper Bag Puppets
• Performance & Rubric
• Sayings & Phrases
• Specific Details to Support Main Ideas
• Vocabulary
• What a Character
• Who Am I

Video Clips are .mp4 and should play in Safari. If you have problems, please use Chrome or Firefox.

Baylor University has a short Commercial for their University Theater Production that is a good introduction to the play. Interesting to see how a small college has cast, staged, and costumed the classic.

The trailer for the 1950 Jose Ferrer movie gives a good overview of the story, literally hitting all the grand romantic and dramatic highights associated with the play.

This clip from Derek Jacobi’s 1985 Royal Shakespeare Society performance, is the “Ah” Scene -- perfect for discussions of tone. I also show the same scene from other versions and have students compare and contrast.

Siskel & Ebert review the 1987 Depardieu film and focus on the language. Shown in French with English subtitles.

New York Metropolitan Opera trailer sets the mood for the play, includes excellent subtitles. Ah, Placido Domingo.

Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner star in the PBS Great Performances production (trailer). Act III, scene vi online.

The oldest clip. Shown at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition, this Cyrano de Bergerac, tinted with color and synchronized to a wax cylinder recording, is thought to be the first film made with both color and sound. A very rare clip.

The newest clip. Virginia Gay’s gender-flipped reimagining of the play was influenced by Covid restrictions, bills itself as an adaptation. Interview.  

Just for Fun

Can’t write your own love letters? Let Cyrano serve you.

The Cyrano Server, now defunct, was an online service that would write both love and break-up letters for you.The site used a MadLibs approach to construction.

Wishbone is an American live-action children’s television series, originally broadcast on PBS, about a Jack Russell Terrier who daydreamas about being the lead character of stories from classic literature. Cyranose is a gem.

Teacher Materials

Cyrano de Bergerac: Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder Lesson Plans for Cyrano approach the play through a discussion of what beauty is for men and for women. Jeana Rock, the teacher who developed the unit, has some great ideas for accessing and using music videos, song lyrics, film adaptations, social media accounts as a way of engaging students. Uses Brad Paisley’s “Online” music video to introduce unit, available on YouTube.

• What Is Beauty Handout
• Sample Definition Essays
• Film Adaptation Assignment
• Creating a MySpace Account for a Fictional Character (screenshots included)

Three full units with 10 lessons and relevant handouts, developed for seventh grade but useful for older students as well --

• The Play’s the Thing: The Drama of Cyrano de Bergerac
• Cyrano de Bergerac: Understanding Drama Through Characterization and Dialogue
• Cyrano Nose His Terms: Studying Drama Through Literary Terms and Elements of Fiction

Cummings Study Guide is extensive, especially good on tracing various allusions in the play.

Enriched Classics has an excellent group research project associated with the play.

The Glencoe Literature Library 30-page guide includes activities and worksheets for every act, with a strong focus on active reading. Excellent.

The Signet Teacher Guide incudes activities, discussion questions, and deeper analysis.

Teach with Movies has a detailed guide, keyed to the 1990 Depardieu film, in French, with English subtitles.

The Shmoop Guide for the play is insightful and seductive. It could easily serve as an introduction to the reading. Always interesting is the Shmoop “ Why Should I Care?” answer -- not usually the expected answer. Also covers symbolism, tone, writing style, title, genre, and plot analysis (classic Freytag’s Pyramid and Booker’s Seven Basic Archetypal Plots). The Best of the Web Resources page links to videos and art files.

Online “cheat sheet” guides -- Book Rags, Cliff Notes, GradeSaver, Novelguide, or SparkNotes.

Miscellaneous Reviews

“Fighting and Writing” by John Lahr -- 2007 Kevine Kline & Jennifer Gardner Broadway (New Yorker, 4 November 2007).

“Why Is ‘Cyrano’ Still So Potent? Ask Anyone Who’s Loved at All” by Jason Bailey -- History of the play’s popularity, to Dinklage (New York Times, 25 February 2022).

“‘Cyrano de Bergerac,’ Now Noseless and Drunk on Words” by Jesse Green -- emphasizes the word-craziness of the language (New York Times, 14 April 2022).

‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ at Synetic Theater by Justin Rustle (MD Theatre Guide, 8 August 2023 -- all-clown cast. Yes, clowns.

Derivative Interpretations

Mary T. Christel, an AP English veteran, discusses common elements in several films derived from Cyrano de Bergerac in her article “Making the Unfamiliar Familiar Through Film.” Offering practical suggestions for three major adaptations.

Cyrano & Roxanne

Cyrano & Roxanne --Viewing guide and essay assignment comparing and contrasting Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxanne.

The famous Nose Speech from Roxanne. Video clip of the “Twenty Something Betters” (actually 25). Both are a little racey, maybe PG-13ish.

Cyrano Paraphrase - vocabulary activity based on sentences from reviews of Roxanne.

Viewing Guide for Cyrano -- Worksheet to takecomparison/contrast notes and culminating essay activity.

Trailer for the Movie -- overview could almost serve as a review of Cyrano, as well as an introduction to Roxanne.

Essay Test on Both

The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Not as clever as Roxanne, but still derived from Cyrano de Bergerac, The Truth about Cats and Dogs demonstrates the similarities in its trailer, while reversing the genders in the romantic triangle. Abby, a veterinarian and radio talk show host who asks her model friend Noelle to impersonate her when a handsome man shows interest in her, and the role reversals begin.

Let It Shine

Let It Shine follows 16-year-old Cyrus DeBarge, an aspiring musician who has a gift for rhyme yet lacks the self-confidence to take the stage and, through his rap song, tell his longtime crush Roxanne Andrews how he feels about her. His flighty best friend, Kris McDuffy is mistakenly named the winner for a song Cyrus wrote. Fearful of being thrust into the spotlight, Cyrus panics and allows Kris to take credit for his heartfelt lyrics and soon he’s standing by as Roxanne begins to fall for Kris.

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James McAvoy’s 2019 Stage Performance

Not the usual elegant period production, McAvoy’s intensity may appeal to our students. Jamie Lloyd’s production uses everything from rap and beat-boxing to poetry slam mics front of stage. Martin Crimp adapts Rostand’s Alexandrine verse with modern parlance and street slang. James McAvoy’s Cyrano raps in a Scottish accent, in leather and denim, unencumbered by an exaggerated nose. And it kind of works.

Reviews

• “James McAvoy’s Rapping Cyrano Dazzles With Words” by Ben Brantley (New York Times, 8 January 2020).
• “James McAvoy Is Fierce in Radical Reboot of Romantic Classic” by Michael Billington emphasizes the radical reconstruction of the characters (The Guardian, 8 December 2019).
• “Theater Review” by Demetrios Matheou (Hollywood Reporter, 8 December 2019).
• “Martin Crimp’s ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ at the Playhouse Theatre” by Mert Dilek (Hollywood Times, 12 December 2019).

Video Clips

• Official National Theatre Trailer
• West End Trailer
• Proposition Scene
• Cyrano’s Seduction Speech to Roxane
• McAvoy Interview on Cyrano

The National Theater offers a paid streaming service, worth keeping an eye on for encore dates (NT Live). Not currently available.

Martin Crimp Script available on Amazon (Kindle & paperback).

Peter Dinklage’s
2022 Movie Musical Performance

Joe Wright’s Cyrano is not a direct adaptation of Rostand’s play, but a screen translation of Erica Schmidt’s stage musical, which ran in 2018 with Peter Dinklage (her real life husband) playing Cyrano. In this version, Cyrano de Bergerac is not a man with an outrageously large nose, but a man of short stature.

Reviews

• “Peter Dinklage Tackles ‘Cyrano’ Without the Nose” by Ben Brantley (New York Times, 7 November 2019).
• “A Dashing Peter Dinklage Offers a Fresh Spin on a Romantic Classic” by Peter Debruge (Variety, 4 September 2021).
• “Joe Wright Wanted to Make Something ‘Really Beautiful’ During a Pandemic -- So Here Comes Cyrano” (Vanity Fair, 26 August 2021).
• “In ‘Cyrano’ song ‘Every Letter,’ three voices swirl, dance and finally unite in harmony” by Tim Greiving (Los Angeles Times, 1 December 2021).

Video Clips

• Official Movie Trailer
• Behind the Scenes
• Official Movie Soundtrack -- 27 songs. Actual full YouTube playlist of the musical. Every song ranked here.
• Dinklage Leslie Stahl Interview

Erica Schmidt Full Screenplay (full text).

Updated 8 December 2023

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