You won't be alone if you've never heard of the Tokyo-based International Centre for Theatre Arts, because few have seen any plays it has staged and anyway its focus is firmly on building a reputation outside Japan.
Founded in 2012 by New Zealand-born James Sutherland, the group has held workshops and staged occasional performances in South Korea, Colombia, Iran and Japan in line with its strategy to primarily target markets abroad while skipping this country's theater-business norms.
Yet as chance would have it, CITA — as Sutherland cites the group's acronym based, he says, on its Spanish title of Centro internacional teatro artes — is set to present a rare one-off piece in Tokyo on March 13. Titled "Earthbound," this is a work inspired by the lives of two brilliant men — Hideo Itokawa (1912-99), the so-called Dr. Rocket who pioneered Japan's space program, and the American Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), who is often said to be the greatest chess player of all time.