'Crime and Punishment': The crime you'll be glad you were a witness to
In a scoop for Tokyo, Theatre Cocoon in Shibuya Ward is set to mark the new year with the world premiere of a new production of Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" in an original production by English director Phillip Breen with a ...
Comedian Akira Ohashi 100% reveals his naked ambition
His naked tray act may not be to everyone's liking, but Akira Ohashi is too focused on the positives to worry about that. The Saitama-born, 44-year-old comedian, who is better known by his stage name Akira 100%, clearly loves being in the public eye, ...
2018 was the year in Japan that saw the stage sing, while contemporary drama barely made a squeak
Musicals have flourished in 2018, with many young stars also helping to sell out straight plays in which they appeared. However, the contemporary drama scene in Japan has been unusually quiet this year in terms of new works and writers. It is fitting that Keita ...
While ballet reigned supreme, a range of dance delighted fans in 2018
For a dance-loving country like Japan, every year brings delight in the variety of performances on offer, but the depth and breadth of 2018 on stage has been particularly grand for fans across a wide range of genres and movements. In January, the New National ...
Playwright brings voices of America's enslaved to the Tokyo stage
Follow-up show to an upcoming Huck Finn musical grapples with how to strike a balance between relating the true horror of slavery and telling the whole story.
Alan Rickman made wickedness delicious. Reviewing Rickman's breakout role as a scheming hedonist aristocrat in the play "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," Guardian newspaper critic Nicholas de Jongh likened the actor to "a cat who knows the way to the cream." Rickman, who died of cancer Thursday aged ...
Stage veteran invites Tokyoites to try treading the boards
While Ann Jenkins has taken roles in numerous Tokyo International Players productions during her 24-year involvement with the group, she is just as active behind the scenes.
South Korean dance show aims for the eyes, not the ears
South Korean entertainment is excelling in a lot of disciplines, and stage performance is one of them. Now a groundbreaking action-drawing show, "Hero," will take its turn trying to impress Japanese audiences. "Hero" embarks on a monthlong run at the Roppongi Blue Theater in Tokyo ...
With 'Desh,' Khan proves you can go home again
If art's purpose is to ask the relevant questions, then British-Bangladeshi dancer Akram Khan successfully interrogates humanity — and himself — with his latest production, "Desh."
Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy
Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name ...
