Masachika Ichimura News

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies is now streaming through the weekend, as part of The Shows Must Go On! We're celebrating the streaming production with a flashback to the show's journey.

The world premiere of 'IKIRU,' a new musical based on legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, opened earlier this month to rave audience reviews in Tokyo.

MACBETH seems to be one of the most abused pieces from Williams Shakespeare's canon; yet, when a production does the show justice, it is incredibly spellbinding. Luckily for fans of the play and art of theatre in general, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more robustly magnificent production of the classic than NINAGAWA MACBETH.

This summer's Mostly Mozart Festival marks an expansion, as it significantly increases the size and scope of its multidisciplinary presentations, enhances its commitment to the music of our own time, and extends its geographical footprint to include Central Park and Brooklyn. Paying homage to Mozart's artistry and ingenuity, this summer's programs encompass major landmark international productions in all disciplines, concerts by both emerging and eminent creative voices, and commissions and world premieres.

Lincoln Center has revealed its calendar of events for July, including the Mostly Mozart Festival lineup. Check out the full listings below:

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature FIDDLER, LES MIS, and LOVE NEVER DIES.

This past Hanukkah I witnessed a kind of miracle in modern times: Toho Stage's Fiddler on the Roof, performed in Japanese by an all Asian company. The quintessential Jewish musical set in Imperial Russia in 1905 is based on Tevye and his Daughters and other tales by Sholem Aleichem about a poor dairyman's attempts to maintain his cultural and religious traditions in a changing world.

Winner of nine Tony Awards when it debuted in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof is the brainchild of Broadway legends, Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince; songwriters, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; and bookwriter, Joseph Stein. Touching audiences worldwide with its humor, warmth and honesty, this universal show is a staple of the musical theatre canon.

Ninagawa Company's Macbeth introduced UK audiences to the theatre of Yukio Ninagawa 30 years ago and this epoch-making production is now reprised at the Barbican to celebrate the work of the late Japanese director.

As PRINCE OF BROADWAY opens at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, take a look back at its complicated road to Broadway.

Billed as 'a new musical', the world premiere of Prince of Broadway at Tokyu Theatre Orb in Tokyo salutes legendary Broadway producer/director, Harold Prince. Co-directed by Prince himself and Susan Stroman (who also choreographs), the evening celebrates an illustrious career spanning over six decades from the 1950s up to the present day, during which time Hal Prince has produced and/or directed more than 30 Broadway shows, winning a record 21 Tony Awards along the way.

Before iTunes and Spotify came along, I used to collect every original cast CD of any Broadway or West End musical that I could lay my hands on, including foreign language cast recordings. By far, my largest collection of non-English cast CDs consists of Japanese cast recordings, many of which were released by Gekidan Shiki (Shiki Theatre Company). Over the last five decades, Shiki has mounted Japanese-language productions of Applause (1972), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), West Side Story (1974), A Chorus Line (1979), Evita (1982), Cats (1983), The Phantom of the Opera (1988), Crazy For You (1993), Beauty and the Beast (1995), The Lion King (1998), Aspects of Love (1999), Mamma Mia! (2002), Aida (2003), The Little Mermaid (2013), The Sound of Music (2013), Wicked (2013) and Aladdin (2015).

Umeda Arts Theater recently announce the cast and creative team for the World Premiere of Prince of Broadway, a new musical celebrating the extraordinary six decade Broadway career of producer-director Harold Prince. The production will play from October 23-November 22, 2015 at Tokyu Theatre Orb in Tokyo, Japan and November 28-December 10, 2015 at Umeda Arts Theater, Main Hall, in Osaka, Japan. In celebration, Prince, director Susan Strom, Shuler Hensley, and Kaley Ann Voorhees recently made the trek to Tokyo to meet the press - BroadwayWorld brings you exclusive photos below!

Earlier this week (Monday 10 March), Andrew Lloyd Webber visited the Nissay Theatre in Tokyo, Japan for the Japanese premiere of Love Never Dies. He was joined by the cast, led by Masachika Ichimura as the Phantom and Ayaka Hirahira as Christine, on stage at the curtain call.

The JAPAN CUTS: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema returns for its seventh season, with 10 days of screenings and over 20 titles. JAPAN CUTS 2013 presents the roughest, sharpest, and smoothest of today's cutting-edge Japanese film scene, encompassing bigger-than-life blockbusters, high-concept art house titles, moving and provoking documentaries, delirious rom-coms, refined melodramas and a handful of UFOs-unidentified film objects. Featuring appearances by several special guest filmmakers, JAPAN CUTS 2013 kicks off July 11 with a blowout opening night party and runs through July 21, screening 25 titles, all of which are a mix of New York, U.S. and International premieres. The festival again dovetails with the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which co-presents 12 films of the JAPAN CUTS lineup today, July 11-14.

The JAPAN CUTS: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema returns for its seventh season, with 10 days of screenings and over 20 titles. JAPAN CUTS 2013 presents the roughest, sharpest, and smoothest of today's cutting-edge Japanese film scene, encompassing bigger-than-life blockbusters, high-concept art house titles, moving and provoking documentaries, delirious rom-coms, refined melodramas and a handful of UFOs-unidentified film objects. Featuring appearances by several special guest filmmakers, JAPAN CUTS 2013 kicks off July 11 with a blowout opening night party and runs through July 21, screening 25 titles, all of which are a mix of New York, U.S. and International premieres. The festival again dovetails with the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), which co-presents 12 films of the JAPAN CUTS lineup July 11-14.

In 1610 William Shakespeare wrote The Tempest and William Adams was shipwrecked onto the coast of Japan. Performed in conjunction with the RSC's season A World Elsewhere (director Gregory Dolan is also the RSC's artistic director), Anjin the Shogun and the English Samurai takes place in a politically tempestuous period of Japan's history. Yet writer Mike Poulton's story of the first Englishman to arrive and settle in Japan seems an apt and rather lovely choice for this year's J400 celebrations, marking four hundred years of UK-Japan relations.

Gregory Doran's production of ANJIN: THE SHOGUN & THE ENGLISH SAMURAI, written by Mike Poulton with Sho Kawai, will play eleven performances at Sadler's Wells Theatre from 31 January to 9 February, with the press night on Thursday 31 January.