Japan's young dramatists are increasingly shrugging off their medium's long-standing, self-imposed national isolation and are setting sail in search of new audiences, and critical praise, overseas.

This year was especially successful for a handful of freshmen as theater lovers from the West picked up on the Japanese scene and traveled here as well.

The trend began in 2007, when the quirky Tokyo-based company Chelfitsch (a childlike pronunciation of "selfish") was picked up for the Kunsten Festival des Arts (KFA) in Brussels.