VALLEY WEEKEND : THEATER : NOTES : Heroes’ Journeys Link Company’s Fall Classics : Courage is the thread that runs through A Noise Within’s rotating repertory of dramas.

When Orson Welles was, for the umpteenth time, thinking of starring in “Cyrano de Bergerac,” he came across an interesting bit of theater trivia. In the original 1897 production of Edmond Rostand’s classic drama, French actor Coquelin, who originated the role, used several noses. With each act the French actor’s nose got shorter and shorter. In a fairly recent Southland production of “Cyrano,” the lead actor was courageous enough to use his own nose.

Geoff Elliott, playing the poet-soldier in a production of the play at Glendale’s A Noise Within, which opens Saturday, is taking the middle road.

“It’s looks a lot like the real Cyrano’s nose,” Elliott says, referring to portraits of de Bergerac, who lived from 1619 to 1655 and was a French writer and soldier as well as the subject of Rostand’s poetic drama. He was also a man quite sensitive about the size of his nose. “Cyrano had a pretty big schnozzola there, and he did get in several duels because people looked at his nose the wrong way. A great deal of Cyrano is his insecurity about his nose.”

In the play, it’s that insecurity that sets Cyrano on his lifelong journey of unrequited adoration after he falls in love with the beauteous Roxane. And it’s that sort of journey that’s at the core of A Noise Within’s fall season, which also includes George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”

A Noise Within, which specializes in productions of theatrical classics, is in its fifth season, and each of those seasons has had a theme connecting the plays to the ‘90s.

This year, the theme is “Blind Visions,” and it is an apt moniker for the fall’s rotating repertory of three plays, and also for the plays which will make up the spring repertory (“As You Like It,” “Ah, Wilderness!” and “Great Expectations”).

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Elliott, co-artistic director of the group with his wife, Julia Rodriguez Elliott and Art Manke, says all of the plays concern people “who are faced with something, or at a crossroads in their lives, deciding which way to go. The idea of courage--with what’s happening these days, in the economy, in the arts--there’s a great deal of courage needed to lean into it all.”

Manke, who is directing the production of “Cyrano,” asks, “How do we, as a theater, a group of artists, somehow show people that there’s some hope, some light at the end of the tunnel? The idea that tied in with courage is heroes. Who are the heroes of great dramatic literature? Obviously the first who came to mind was Cyrano. There are paths they choose, and they are either led to those paths with blinders, or they experience such an epiphanal moment of blinding light and illumination that there’s an inevitable path that they follow.”

Another such character is Nora in “A Doll’s House,” who at the end of the play has only one choice she can make, and Barbara in Shaw’s comedy, who must choose to travel along her own path or the one chosen for her by her father.

“Part of the experience,” says Elliott, “for Cyrano, and for all of us as human beings, is not just where we’re at right now, but the journey, where we’re going. The trip is everything. How am I going to get there, and how am I going to answer those tough questions for myself?”

A similar journey of discovery and vision has guided A Noise Within through its four formative years. And the road taken has been filled with travelers, not just the artistic directors and artistic adviser Sabin Epstein. There are also the actors and technicians who have taken the trip with them.

“We’ve always been very fortunate that the people who have been drawn together by this work have been very dedicated from the start, because of the kind of material we’re doing,” says Manke. “You don’t dedicate your life to doing this kind of work without full commitment. It’s too hard, and too time consuming.”

A Noise Within has managed to hold its own financially. Manke says the group balances its books every year, and because of generous support by the public and the city of Glendale, and a growing subscription audience, the group’s own journey continues.

“We’re packing them in,” said Manke. “The sense of security has quadrupled, and people see that, and recognize that we’re not going away.”

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“Cyrano de Bergerac” opens Saturday. It is playing in rotating repertory with “A Doll’s House” (opens Oct. 14) and “Major Barbara” (opens Nov. 4). A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Ave., Glendale. (Call theater for schedules.) Repertory schedule ends Dec. 17. $18-$22. (818) 546-1924.