Benjamin McElmurray
  • Cinema and Video Production
  • Class of 2014
  • Blythewood, SC

Benjamin McElmurray Named to Cast of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac

2013 Nov 15

The Bob Jones University Classic Players named Benjamin McElmurray to the cast of the upcoming production of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Nov. 20-22 which features Dr. Darren Lawson, Dean of the School of Fine Arts and Communication, in the title role.

McElmurray, a resident of Greenville, is pursuing a BS in Cinema and Video Production and is cast as a baker in the play.

Since his first appearance onstage in Paris over a century ago, the character Cyrano has captivated audiences with his chivalry, courage, poetry and grotesquely large nose. This nose becomes the crux of Rostand's romantic plot, for Cyrano refuses to reveal his love to a beautiful woman named Roxane, believing that no woman could ever love him because of his nose.

Roxane obviously admires Cyrano's gifts as a swordsman and man of letters, but she falls in love with the handsome young cadet Christian. When she bares her soul about this love to Cyrano as her cousin and protector, he responds outwardly with a carefree bravado and agrees to help his rival. Inwardly, however, he feels a sense of sacrifice and longing as he pours his own soul into the love letters, romantic poetry and flowery speech with which Christian woos and wins Roxane.