Akira Kurosawa News

Rubicon Theatre presents a timely and trenchant production of Shakespeare's tragedy KING LEAR as the centerpiece of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Directed by Co-Founder James O'Neil, the production features a 20-member cast led by acclaimed actor and company memberGeorge Ball, who has starred in previous Rubicon productions of All My Sons, Man of La Mancha, and Jacques Brel… (New York, L.A., and international companies of the latter).

Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference (AFF), the premier film festival that champions the writers' contribution to film, television, and new media, is thrilled to announce Roger Corman as the recipient of the “Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking” Award at the 25th annual Austin Film Festival, this October 25-November 1.

Working intimately with directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Kon Ichikawa on some of their most important films, Kazuo Miyagawa (1908-99) pushed Japanese cinema to its highest artistic peaks through his lyrical, innovative, and technically flawless camerawork. Considered the greatest cinematographer of postwar Japanese cinema whose career endured through the 1990s, Miyagawa has influenced generations of leading filmmakers around the world.

At a ceremony in Tokyo today, His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, honorary patron of the Japan Art Association, paid homage to the winners of the Association's 2017 Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. This year's laureates are legendary performer Mikhail Baryshnikov, world music star Youssou N'Dour, architect Rafael Moneo, visual artist Shirin Neshat and sculptor El Anatsui. Scroll down for photos from the awards ceremony!

The Japan Art Association has just announced that Mikhail Baryshnikov, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest dancers of all time as well as a multi-talented performing artist, and world music star Youssou N'Dour.

The exhibition, Martin Scorsese, devoted to the director's life, work, and passion for cinema, which opened on December 11, has attracted more than 50,000 visitors to the Museum's galleries and to the comprehensive retrospective of the director's work in its theaters.

For the first time in the U.S., legendary Japanese composer Akira Ifukube's massively influential monster music comes to life in the chamber pop/rock aural extravaganza, Godzilla Legend-Music of Akira Ifukube. Presented by Japan's popular techno-pop bandHikashu, this 90-minute tour de force performance features favorite themes and sensational musical set pieces from some of the most reveredGodzilla movies of all time. Devised and arranged by Hikashu founding member INOUE Makoto under Ifukube's endorsement, the performance features narration by Inoue, who also plays synthesizers, and appearances by 'extreme vocalist' and multi-instrumentalist MAKIGAMI Koichi, current Hikashu front man, and rising star art-pop duo Charan-Po-Rantan. The one-night-only concert takes place Friday, April 28, 7:30 pm, at Japan Society.

Toho Co., Ltd. has announced the world premiere of a new production of William Shakespeare's romantic comedy AS YOU LIKE IT from the Tony Award-winning creative team of Michael Mayer and Tom Kitt, who will reunite after previous collaborations on American Idiot: The Musical on Broadway and Second Stage Theatre's Everyday Rapture, which will open in Tokyo in January 2017.

Toho Co., Ltd. has announced the world premiere of a new production of William Shakespeare's romantic comedy AS YOU LIKE IT from the Tony Award-winning creative team of Michael Mayer and Tom Kitt, who will reunite after previous collaborations on American Idiot: The Musical on Broadway and Second Stage Theatre's Everyday Rapture, which will open in Tokyo in January 2017.

In conjunction with Elizabethtown College's First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare exhibition taking place from Nov. 10 through Dec. 4, the College's High Library presents a variety of Shakespeare-related events through November and December. All events are free; some require registration.

Sony Classical proudly announces the release of The Magnificent Seven (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), featuring music by James Horner and Simon Franglen.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Ava DuVernay's documentary The 13th as the Opening Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival (September 30 - October 16), making its world premiere at Alice Tully Hall.

The Old Globe and the San Diego Public Library were selected last year to co-host the only stop in California for FIRST FOLIO! THE BOOK THAT GAVE US SHAKESPEARE, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, a national traveling exhibition organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

For my school's spring play, New Albany High School presented a production of the classic Shakespearean tragedy, Macbeth. The director and teacher of the drama department at the school, Elliott Lemberg, decided to stray from the typical setting of late 1500s Scotland and put a Kabuki twist on it.

?Rashomon is an ancient Japanese form of storytelling where you see a story from several points of view and you find out each person's truth about what that story is. According to The Criterion Collection, "The 1950 movie in which director Akira Kurosawa presents with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks is a riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice. Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made." 

11th Hour Theatre Company brings Michael John LaChiusa's mysterious See What I Wanna See to life this Spring as its Mainstage Production. This intriguing musical is set to run April 28-May 15 at the Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street. The official opening night is Monday, May 2 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $11-$40 and are available online at www.11thhourtheatrecompany.org or by phone at 267-987-9865.

Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival concludes 2016 season with world premieres by James Nyoraku Schlefer and Karen LeFrak April 18 program at Peter Norton Symphony Space features shakuhachi player/ composer Schlefer's 2Blue, Rashomon by Victoria Bond, and other works

This spring Japan Society celebrates the astonishing yet little-known world of Japanese musical films. Filled with rarely screened genre treasures, most unavailable on DVD, Japan Sings! The Japanese Musical Film focuses on the golden age of Japan's 'popular song film' starring teen idols and TV stars from the 50s and 60s.

The Old Globe and the San Diego Public Library were selected last year to co-host the only stop in California for FIRST FOLIO! THE BOOK THAT GAVE US SHAKESPEARE, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, a national traveling exhibition organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

This spring, Asia Society presents Season of Japan, a celebration of Japanese culture held in conjunction with the exhibition Kamakura: Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan, on view at Asia Society Museum in New York from February 9 to May 8, 2016.