Shiki Theatre Company (劇団四季 Gekidan Shiki, Lit. Four Seasons Theatre Company) is one of Japan's best-known and largest theatre companies. Shiki Theatre Company employs over 800 actors and staff, and stages about 2800 performances a year. Shiki Theatre Company operates nine theaters for their exclusive use. Originally, they staged classic plays by Jean Anouilh or Jean Giraudoux. However, in the late 1970s, they found success by staging western musicals and plays.
Shiki is also known for producing original language musicals. One such example is the Showa Trilogy, a set of three musicals about World War II and the aftermath. The series consists of Ri Kōran, a musical about the famous Manchurian-Japanese singer; Foreign Hill (異国の丘 Ikoku no Oka) which tells the story of Japanese prisoners of war at an internment camp in Siberia; and Southern Cross (南十字星 Minami Shūjisei) about the trials of innocent B and C-class war criminals in Indonesia.
Conveying“the excitement of life” and “the joy of living”
The Shiki Theatre Company was founded on the Bastille Day, July 14, 1953, by a group of ten university students, who aspired to bring about a revolution in the theatrical world.
Since then, for more than 60 years, the company has grown into an organization of some 1,300 people, including actors, technical and management staff. Today, it is one of the largest theatrical groups in Japan.
Aiming for redressing the excessive concentration of culture [in the Tokyo area], the company has eight dedicated theatres in Japan (*1) and five or six shows go on a tour per year.
Each year, we stage over 3,000 performances to audiences in excess of 3 million, presenting a wide variety of shows including straight plays, original musicals and foreign musicals.
These include the most talked-about shows from other countries, such as New York City’s Broadway and London’s West End. Shiki is able to bring them to Japanese audiences quickly thanks to the strong mutual relationship of trust with other productions.
In particular, we have played six Disney musicals, beginning with Beauty and the Beast in 1995 followed by THE LION KING AIDA, THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN and the Bells of Notre Dame.
We also made a great success for playing long-running musicals in Japan, such as CATSand the Phantom of the Opera by a hit musical composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, as well as shows such as MAMMA MIA! and WICKED the Musical.
At the same time, Shiki has also given high priority to conducting social contribution activities for children across the country. We implement the Kokoro no Gekijo project (*2), which is a large-scale venture that invites 360,000 children to our shows for free each year, as well as the “How to Speak Beautiful Japanese Class” which employs Shiki’s unique methodology, with the aim of nurturing a richness of spirit through theatre.
We continue to engage in challenging activities with the aim of creating an enriched society.
(*1) Currently (2018), two of these theatres are temporarily closed due to the re-development of the area. These will be re-opened in 2020.
(*2) We have been implementing the project since 2008, with the cooperation of the Butaigeijutsu Center, many companies and organizations, which support the objectives of the project.
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日本、〒100-0006 東京都千代田区有楽町１丁目２−１ Map
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