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Award-winning Islander artist Bruce Somerville is one of the four to perform in the Gulfshore Playhouse production Life X 3, written by the Tony-award winner Yasmina Reza, which opens Oct. 18 at the Norris Center in Naples.

“It’s really well produced — there is nothing amateur about this production,” Somerville said.

Somerville has performed as an actor professionally for 32 years and pursues other fine arts, such as woodworking and painting.

Somerville, originally from Iowa, began his acting career at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minn. He has performed with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in Wisconsin and McArter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, and performed in Ohio and New York City, before moving to Marco Island.

“I went wherever the jobs took me for many years,” Somerville said.

He found Marco Island courtesy of his wife, Irene Horowitz, who had property here. They have been living on Marco Island for five and a half years.

Somerville contributed pieces to the Art League of Marco Island’s Faces exhibit last October and has been in the past three Florida Stories series for the Gulfshore Playhouse.

“I’m very fond of the organization,” Somerville said of Gulfshore Playhouse, which is currently establishing its roots in Estero. Meanwhile, the Gulfshore Players have been performing in theaters throughout Southwest Florida.

Courtesy of Amanda Reid/Clear Moon Studios

Bruce Somerville, Marco Islander and professional actor for 32 years, is a member of the ensemble cast of Life x 3 , a Gulfshore Playhouse production, opening Oct. 18 at The Norris Center in Naples.

Life X 3 has just finished its run in Fort Myers at The Alliance Theater and opens Thursday at the Norris Center.

“I’m very excited to have our first long run of this production,” Gulfshore Playhouse Artistic Director Kristen Coury said. “The Playhouse hasn’t been able to secure such an extended length of time.”

Life X 3 was on Broadway in 2003, starring Helen Hunt and John Turturro. Playwright Reza was a Tony-award winner for the production Art.

“Art has been done by everybody up and down Southwest Florida, but this play is lesser known,” Coury said. “Part of the Gulfshore Playhouse’s mission is to bring new, lesser known and affordable theater to Southwest Florida. Mostly, we tend to bring actors from out of town, and in New York, and we do hire them locally whenever they’re outstanding, such as Bruce (Somerville), who is such a pleasure to work with.”

The ensemble cast is made up of all equally fine actors, Coury said.

“Bruce (Somerville) is so well trained and such a smart thinking actor. And it was a real pleasure to take that journey with him and discover the character, because he (Hubert) is very different than he is personally,” Coury said. “(Bruce) is quite shy, sweet and actually a real teddy bear, and (Hubert) is razor sharp, hawk-like, almost haughty.

“And one day he said he said to me, I get this guy — and he came to life,” Coury said. “Everything — his tone of voice, movement — everything was completely different and completely the character of Hubert.”

In the production of Life X 3 one scene is repeated three times.

A young astrophysicist, Henry, and his wife, Sonia, are counting on hosting a party that they expect to be a life-changing event. But their guests arrive one night earlier than expected and their apartment is chaotic when the two arrive, Coury said.

“They have mixed up their dates, so they have to have things like cheezits instead of a fine dinner,” Somerville said.

The guests are another astrophysicist, Hubert, and his wife, Inez. Hubert supposedly has the power to hire and fire, Somerville said.

“They spend a lot of time talking about dark holes and dark matter about the cosmos, but it really all comes down to how people treat each other,” Somerville said. “To me the meaning of the play is that you get to see the same scene three times. It’s about the choices they make and can make.”

One scene sells the characters’ best selves, one is their worst selves and one is them standing their ground, Coury said.

“It causes us as viewers to question our own thoughts moods choices and things that we say because you can see so clearly how it effects things,” Coury said.