Starting her eighth and final season as artistic director with the New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) in October this year, Eriko Ogawa has been pondering both the role of theater as well as her own.

Over the past decade, Ogawa manifested a global vision for Japan’s national theater as a bridge across cultures. Unlike traditional arts, such as kabuki or noh, contemporary drama in Japan — from reimagined Greek tragedy to experimental theater — developed from a blend of national and international cultural DNA; being insular is not its nature.

“I have spent these years thinking deeply about what a national theater should do and what it can do,” Ogawa tells The Japan Times.