What we do

Kono-ko-tachi no Natsu (These Children’s Summer) -1945, Hiroshima, Nagasaki-

  • Organization : Japanese Centre of International Theatre Institute
  • Section : In Tokyo
  • Type of Grant Program : Single
  • Art Forms : Theater

Outline

This “readers’ theater” event comprises a 90-minute reading play with six actresses and six local participants from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki area, using a script that pulls together a huge amount of primary source material such as journals, writings and poems left by children who were caught up in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the mothers who took care of them, and the mothers who were unable to take care of them. Structured in three parts (Part I on Hiroshima, Part II on Nagasaki and Part III on the aftermath), the reading is brought to a close by the powerful words of young girls with dreams of a better tomorrow despite their suffering: “I will live, I will survive.”

Cast:Kazuko Kato, Hiro Komura, Norie Takahashi, Yoshiko Tokoshima, Mizuki Nishiyama, Hideko Hara
Reading of tanka and haiku by Mayumi Araki, Junior high school and high school student in Setagaya-ku
Voice actor: Kazuo Kitamura
Conceived and directed by Koichi Kimura
Equipment/setting: Tsuyoshi Ishii(Bungakuza)
Lighting: Toshiaki Komiya(Stage Lighting Staff)
Sound effects: Sadatsugu Fukagawa (TEO)
Stage direction: Kazuhiko Asanuma
Production: Emi Watanabe(Chijinkai Shinsya)

Profile

International Theatre Institute
The Japanese Centre was formed in May 1951, and formally recognized as a member of the ITI at the World Congress at Oslo in June with Seiichiro Takahashi as its president.
In 1970 Hideji Hojyo became president and planned the Centre’s financial restructuring.
In 1985 the Centre became independent from the Japan Theatre Arts Association and Naoya Uchimura was appointed president.
In June 1990 it was authorized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs as an incorporated association under its then president, Tomokazu Sakamoto.
In June 1991 the Japanese Centre was elected member state on the Executive Council at the ITI’s 24th World Congress in Turkey, and re-elected for World Congresses in Germany in 1993, in Venezuela in1995, in South Korea in 1997,in France in 2000, in Greece in 2002, in Mexico in 2004, in the Philippines in 2006, in Spain in 2008 and in China in 2011. The incumbent president took up office in 2008.

Venues

SETAGAYA PUBLIC THEATRE, Setagaya City, Tokyo