"Am-dram" may attract devotion and derision in equal measure, but in Japan a strong tradition of amateur English-language theater has been serving the wider community for nearly 150 years.

The earliest English-language performances were held in Yokohama -- in the homes and on the ships of the first Westerners to enter the country after the Meiji government ended the shogunate's policy of national isolation in 1868. Attracting entrepreneurs and adventurers from the West, Yokohama's first drama clubs were organized by the foreign military, with all the roles taken by men. This is in marked contrast to today, when a commonly heard directorial lament is about the scarcity of male actors.

However, it's not only women who have moved center stage over time. Education and cultural bridge-building have evolved from peripheral concerns into the driving force behind English-language theater, once considered merely entertainment for expats.

These changes are evident in the productions of two amateur companies, Tokyo International Players and the Nagoya Players. Both are in the final stages of rehearsal for their year-end shows, and I caught up with them to find out how their upcoming productions reflect their aims and ambitions to present quality, non-professional drama.

The Nagoya Players met for the first time in 1975, in the back garden of Michael Horne, formerly professor of English at Nagoya University. "The group was set up to provide English-language theater for students in Nagoya," says Louise Heal-Kawai, an assistant professor of English language and culture at Sugiyama Women's University who has been with the Players since 1990.

As the matriarch Amanda in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," Heal-Kawai shares the stage next month with Nanzan University English-language instructor and Players' stalwart James Welker, acting the central part of Amanda's son, Tom. "As the study of English grew more popular, our audience changed from being primarily university students," Welker explains. "Today, about 80 percent of our audiences are [Japanese] members of the public with an interest in English and/or the cultures presented in the plays."

Williams' celebrated 1944 drama -- about a working-class American Midwest family in the 1930s fragmenting under the pressure of its members' desires and disappointments -- is a classroom classic, too. The Players' Web site ( www.nagoyaplayers.org ) offers an impressive range of teaching aids, from comprehension questions to suggested creative-writing assignments.

Although the performers relish their acting opportunities, their primary aim is to make sure that their audiences -- with little access to English-language theater otherwise -- get as much out of the show as they do. As such, a detailed synopsis in Japanese is available for every production and programs are bilingual.

Whereas Welker is happy to describe the Nagoya Players as "a community theater group," the long-standing joke in Tokyo is that TIP is "a community theater in search of a community." Nonetheless, the capital's rapid turnover of residents hasn't stopped the company from offering full theatrical seasons ever since it was formed in 1896.

The real challenge for TIP is to select plays that appeal to both a Japanese audience and to Tokyo's foreign community drawn from every corner of the globe. Inevitably, that has meant regular outings for such repertory warhorses as Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit" and that all-time crowd-puller, Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" (currently being cast for a performance in March).

"Godspell," TIP's December show, is quite another matter. Written by John-Micheal Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz, this off-Broadway 1970s musical demands ensemble, physical-theater techniques, such as clowning and miming. Oh, and it's based on St. Matthew's Gospel.

Luckily, the man at the helm is David Neale, freelance actor and drama instructor at Tokyo's American School in Japan. Neale saw in this high-energy musical -- with a script that plays ironically and comically, but insightfully, on Christ's teachings as recorded in the Bible -- an unlikely vehicle to celebrate the diversity of Tokyo life.

" 'Godspell' is all about a group of different people coming together," he says, still full of enthusiasm after one of the thrice-weekly late-night rehearsals. "I want the audience to realize that what they're seeing on stage is, or can be, a reflection of their international life here in Tokyo. I cast it like that, against stereotype."

At rehearsal, Neale's cast is clearly aware of the fast-approaching opening night; nerves are there, but so too are some fine vocal performances (including a delightful, gravelly turn from company member Nichole Dickson). Evident above all, though, is the teamwork that must surely be the secret of both TIP's and the Nagoya Players' continuing success.