“Call it monumental – call it continental – ask, ‘is it functional or just ornamental?’ – try being a little experimental with imagery: a rock, a crag, a mountain-range, explicit, illicit, passing strange – barbaric – Homeric – slightly deranged – ask if my face is estranged from the tip – ask if I drown whenever it drips – say “don’t look down, you’ll cause an eclipse!”
Photo credits at bottom of page.
Cyrano de Bergerac is a new verse(ish) adaptation of Rostand’s classic, commissioned by Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre in 2024. The show premiered at the Citadel Theatre on May 7th 2026, before runs at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (Winnipeg) and the Grand Theatre (London, ON.)
“An amazing congratulations is in order for playwright Jessy Ardern... an amazing adaptation of a beloved play... Ardern plays with language and rhymes, making a story set almost 400 years ago feel fresh and relevant in the 21st Century.
Cyrano de Bergerac is easily The Citadel’s best show of the season.”
“A wave, a tide, a torrent, a veritable deluge of poetry of every kind comes at you, in glorious profusion...
In hip-hop, staccato, rhyming couplets, iambic pentameter with playful internal rhymes, Ardern finds a language and a cadence that are both of the period and contemporary, a playfully casual dexterity with anachronism...
The time flies by, more than two-and-a-half hours-plus of it, in a twinkling.”
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All photos by Nanc Price for the Citadel Theatre’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac (2026). Set by Beyata Hackborn. Lighting by Hugh Conacher. Costumes by Deanna Finnman.
(L to R) Darren Martens, Stephanie Sy, Scott Schpeley.
Stephanie Sy, Andrew Cecon, Brian Hamman.
(top to bottom, left to right) Noah Beemer, Braydon Dowler-Coltman, Andrew Cecon, Siobhan Richardson, Scott Schpeley, Alexander Ariate, Sydney Williams.
Andrew Cecon, Scott Schpeley.
The ensemble of Cyrano de Bergerac.
For full cast and creative credits please visit citadeltheatre.com