Despite a daunting work schedule, and the added demands of this holiday season, Mansai Nomura made it -- albeit sleepy faced, but at the appointed hour -- to this interview in the coffee lounge of the Waseda Rihga Royal Hotel in Tokyo.

Though he is known first and foremost as a star of traditional kyogen -- the classic Japanese comic theater established in the Muromachi Period (1333-1573) -- this 36-year-old actor is far from content to restrict his versatile talents to that alone.

In particular, he is constantly striving to render his art form relevant to the younger generation, through presenting kyogen versions of contemporary drama ("Sumidagawa" by Minoru Betsuyaku, "Yabu no naka" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, etc.) or staging kyogen with electronic subtitle displays to make the arcane language accessible to all. He has also broken entirely new ground with his kyogen versions of Shakespeare plays -- "Horazamurai" based on "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and "The Kyogen of Errors" based on "The Comedy of Errors."