Gross attended public school and in 1977 was accepted to the University of California Irvine to study theater. Robert Cohen, then head of UCI's Drama Department later said, "I remember him as an undergrad student actor and knew he was quite good." The following summer he was accepted in the Professional Conservatory program at South Coast Repertory (SCR) in neighboring Costa Mesa, where Lee Shallat-Chemel was then the program Director. She remembered how he handled Edgar's "nonsensical" passages in King Lear during scene study. "Arye found a visceral reality and the scene became filled with pathos and meaning. And it just blew me away. I had never seen, really, any actor do that."