Hideki Noda
Born in Nagasaki Prefecture in 1955, Noda formed the theater company Yume no Yuminsha while he was at Tokyo University. His rapid dialogs with their abundant wordplay attracts large audiences. He studied in Britain after breaking up the company in 1992. After returning to Japan, he mainly released his plays through Noda Map, an independent company. He also was involved in international joint productions based in London, such as Red Demon (Aka Oni) and The Bee.
Yukio Ninagawa
Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1935, Ninagawa made his debut as a stage director in 1969 after working with the theater company Seihai. He directed a number of Shakespeare plays and has wide-ranging overseas performance experience, starting with "Princess Medea" in 1983. He continues to be heavily involved in creative activities, such as founding Saitama Gold Theatre, a theater company comprising members aged 55 or over, at Sainokuni Saitama Artistic Theater.
Festival/Tokyo (F/T), a festival of performing arts, will be held from Feb. 26 to March 29 as part of the Tokyo Culture Creation Project, which aims to create and share art and culture. How should this theatrical festival be structured to suit a large cosmopolitan city that wants to host the 2016 Olympic Games? Stage directors Yukio Ninagawa and Hideki Noda, who is also an acclaimed playwright and actor, sought to answer this question in an interview conducted by Satoshi Tabata of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Culture Department.
