In the summer of 2008, a shockwave hit the world of Japanese theater when Keishi Nagatsuka announced he was taking a yearlong break from the stage to take a government-sponsored sabbatical in London.
After launching into his stage career while still in high school, Nagatsuka, influenced by his renowned actor father Kyozo, founded the Asagaya Spiders theater company as a Waseda University student during the mid 1990s. Since then, he has taken the company to the very forefront of contemporary Japanese drama as a playwright, actor and director. He has won numerous awards, both for his individual work and for his work with the Spiders.
In the autumn of 2008, however, Nagatsuka suddenly chose to take the sabbatical, leaving Japan to spend several months working with the National Theatre of London and enjoying the rest of his break making British friends and discovering more about British theater.