Peals of laughter erupt in the audience as the performers onstage go through their routines. It's not every day that the residents of Kitagawa, a village outside of Kochi, have the opportunity to see a musical performed entirely in the local Tosa dialect, and they're relishing every minute of it -- especially because of the fact that all the cast members are foreigners.

"The creativity and energy that they bring to our village is something really special," one elderly woman comments. "These are things you rarely see in Japanese young people these days."

Re-enacted in rural towns and villages throughout the prefecture in a traveling show that has become an annual spring event, the musical is the work of the amateur drama group Genki Seinen Kai, whose acting talents are drawn largely from members of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. Set up in 1996 by American Brandon Blau, a former JET program coordinator for international relations at the Kochi Prefectural Government, the group aims not only to entertain but also to stimulate interest in Tosa-ben (which, like many other indigenous dialects around the world, is rapidly dying out), while fostering international understanding on the grassroots level.