Toronto native Katsura Sunshine has experienced setbacks as a rakugo storyteller, the 400-year-old Japanese comedic art form, but he has not given up on a long-held dream to build a rakugo theater in the Big Apple.
Sunshine, who studied the traditional and unique form of verbal entertainment in Japan as an apprentice to rakugo master Katsura Bunshi VI — then Katsura Sanshi — for three years from 2008, recently began an off-Broadway run at the New World Stages in Manhattan.
"I would love to bring rakugo to as many places as possible — big theaters — or as many passionate theatergoers as possible. But one day also, I would love to build an actual 'yose,'" Sunshine, 49, said, referring to a traditional theater for rakugo storytelling. "I think New York will one day be ready for that."