Andrew Gall was 10 years old when he saw “Cyrano de Bergerac,” his first play. The title character’s swashbuckling swordplay, flowery language and prominent proboscis left quite the impression on the youngster.

“I didn’t know you could tell a story like that,” says Gall, a locally based actor, director, playwright and screenwriter. “That particular show, that particular experience is the benchmark by which I measure all other theatrical experiences.”

Forty years on from seeing “Cyrano” at an old vaudeville theater in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gall is finally getting to direct the play as part of the Richmond Shakespeare Festival at Agecroft Hall.

The play relates the tale of Cyrano, a 17th-century dualist and poet who is smitten with his distant cousin, the beautiful and intellectual Roxane. For her part, Roxane is infatuated with the handsome but somewhat shallow Christian de Neuvillette. Believing himself too ugly to woo Roxane because of his oversized nose, Cyrano writes love letters to Roxane pretending to be Christian, creating a complicated but funny love triangle.

Though there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century — a novelist and playwright — most people are more familiar with this fictionalized version of him from Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play, including Steve Martin’s modernized 1987 adaptation “Roxanne” with Daryl Hannah.

To update the language for Richmond Shakespeare’s staging, Gall translated this particular adaptation from the original French with some help.

“People keep coming back to it because it’s funny,” says Gall of the play’s staying power. “Cyrano is an irascible, highly relatable, funny, witty character who has a lot of warm, aspirational qualities. We all wish we could sound or talk or be like Cyrano.”

Local actor James Murphy says it’s been a joy to don a custom-made latex nose to bring the title character to life.

“Cyrano is an aspirational everyman, a jack of all trades,” he says. “Another character describes him as having a visible soul, and I feel like that is really on the money. It’s just a dream role to play. … Cyrano doesn’t take any flak from anybody. He’s lived a life of ridicule for his nose, and he’s compensated by becoming quite an extraordinary man.”

Murphy believes that audiences will relate to “Cyrano.”

“There’s something special about the show,” Murphy says. “It’s big. It’s bold. It’s funny. It’s dramatic. It’s romantic, and it’s deeply sad at the same time. It’s an underdog story if your underdog was larger than life. There’s something that everyone can connect to in it. You can’t walk away from ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ without finding a piece of yourself.”

Playing the love interest of the two male leads, Kaitlin Paige Longoria says Roxane is self-assured, smart and witty.

“She’s a pistol,” says Longoria, who is also the artistic director of 5th Wall Theatre. “She loves really big, she laughs really big, she’s one of the most dynamic characters I’ve ever played. I’d describe her as someone who’s read so many books and so much poetry that that’s what she wants her life to be. Her standards are so high.”

Longoria says she’s thoroughly enjoyed working on this play.

“I don’t think I’ve ever has so much fun in a rehearsal room before,” she says, before lauding her castmates. “They’re such strong actors. They come in with all of these choices, and Andrew lets us practice with them. If they work, they work; if they don’t, they don’t, but he gives us a lot of freedom in the space.”

Asked why audiences should see the show, Gall says “Cyrano de Bergerac” is effortlessly charming.

“It’s a play that is full of grand romantic ideas and scrappy, irascible characters,” says Gall, who is also an artistic associate at Richmond Shakespeare. “It’s being performed in the courtyard of a Tudor mansion that was brough to Richmond from England. It sounds almost too strange to be true. It’s just a fantastic experience.”

For Gall, “Cyrano” led directly to his career in the theater. After seeing that first play, Gall began taking acting classes from the performer who portrayed Cyrano and befriended the play’s director.

“The director of that show became my mentor, someone I was incredibly close to until he passed away about 10 years ago,” says Gall before referencing a family joke about his first taste of theater: “My mother says that they took me to the theater and I never really left.”

The Richmond Shakespeare Festival’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” plays through June 8 at Agecroft Hall, 4305 Sulgrave Road, 23221. For more information visit richmondshakespeare.org or call (804) 340-0115.