Richard Dreyfuss coming to Nixa in May to talk about 40-year acting career, citizenship

Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss will stop in Nixa in May to talk about his 40-year career in Hollywood and his many passions off the stage, especially civic engagement.

As part of the "An Evening with Richard Dreyfuss," the New York City native will share behind-the-scenes insight into some of his most iconic roles including Jaws, Stand By Me, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, American Graffiti, Mr. Holland's Opus and The Goodbye Girl.

The event is 7 p.m. Thursday, May 9 at the Aetos Center for the Performing Art's Meridian Title Performance Hall on the campus of Nixa High School.

In concept, his appearance will be similar to "An Evening with Priscilla Presley" at Aetos in late January, the top-selling national show in the first year of the new venue.

Presale access is Thursday with tickets available to the general public starting at noon Friday.

Ticket prices are $60 for reserved balcony, $80 for reserved floor and $115 for preferred floor seating. A meet-and-greet with Dreyfuss can be added to any ticket for $100.

Tickets and information can be found at www.aetoscenter.net.

Dreyfuss, 76, has won an Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and many others. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Known for playing bristly, fast-talking and wisecracking characters, his first role — an uncredited appearance — was in The Graduate.

His big break was 1973's American Graffiti, directed by George Lucas. His career skyrocketed in 1975, when Steven Spielberg offered him the lead alongside Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider in one of AFI’s top 100 films of all time, Jaws.

Two years later, Dreyfuss teamed up with Spielberg for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Dreyfuss won a slew of accolades for Neil Simon's film adaptation of The Goodbye Girl, becoming the youngest to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. That record stood for 25 years.

According to a news release, after several years of problems in his personal life, Dreyfuss returned to the screen in 1986 in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, followed by such films as Stakeout, Stand By Me, and the political farce Moon Over Parador, one of his personal favorites.

More: At Nixa event, Priscilla Presley sought to 'set the record straight' about life with Elvis

In 1989, he reunited one more time with Spielberg for Audrey Hepburn’s final onscreen role in the film Always, and then followed that film up with Bill Murray in What About Bob, and in 1995 he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Mr. Holland's Opus.

He has regularly appeared in television dramas, including his much acclaimed role as Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's 2008 George W. Bush biopic W, and the lead role of Bernie Madoff in another highly reviewed mini-series, Madoff, in 2016.

Dreyfuss has also worked to revive civics education in schools to teach future generations about the power of their citizenship. In 2006, he created The Dreyfuss Initiative and wrote about that project in his 2022 book, The Return of Senselessness.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Richard Dreyfuss coming to Nixa in May to talk about 40-year career