Nohkan (Flute)

Richard Emmert

Kotsuzumi (Shoulder drum)

Sumikoma Mitsuhiko

Taiko (Stick drum)

Sakurai Hitoshi

Chorus leader

Omura Sadamu

Kyogen: FUKURO

Noh in English: BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS

Collaborating artists

David Crandall
David Crandall is a composer, playwright, and performer. A founding member of Theater Nohgaku, he began his training at the Hosho Noh Theater in 1986 and worked professionally until 1991. He has written the text and music for the English language noh Crazy Jane and The Linden Tree, and the music for Zahdi Dates and Poppies. He has also composed instrumental pieces for the Tokyo Quintet and musicals for children.

Matthew R. Dubroff
Matthew R. Dubroff is founding member of Theatre Nohgaku and has been studying and performing noh for over 35 years. He is trained in all aspects of noh theatre and has performed both as an actor and musician.
He is a Professor of Theatre at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia where he teaches and directs. He is the main teacher and organizer of the Noh Training Project – US, a 3-week intensive workshop, that occurs in the summer.

Richard Emmert
Richard Emmert is a professor emeritus of Musashino University. Certified Kita school noh instructor. Founder/past artistic director of Theatre Nohgaku. He has led numerous Noh performance projects outside Japan and composed, directed, and performed in English noh performances and Asian multi-cultural performances. He has also composed the music for the first French noh and arranged music for the first Spanish noh. He is the 2019 award winner of the Koizumi Prize for his work composing English noh.

Kawauchi Takako
Kawauchi Takako has studied and performed noh since 1986 and later went on to study ōtsuzumi, taiko, and kotsuzumi. She has also appeared abroad with Theatre Nohgaku in the English noh Blue Moon Over Memphis (2015), (2017), (2018), and Gettysburg (2019).

Gary Mathews
Gary Mathews studied ballet with Ronn Guidi, Founding Director of Oakland Ballet, then began training in noh with Richard Emmert in 2000. He is a Founding Member of Theatre Nohgaku. His training includes shimai and utai with Sadamu Omura, kotsuzumi with Mitsuo Kama and Kayu Omura, and otsuzumi with Eitaro Okura. He has performed in various productions including Pine Barrens (2006), Atsumori (2012), Hagoromo (2012), Sumida River (2015) and the various tours of Blue Moon Over Memphis.

Jubilith Moore
Jubilith Moore is a performer, director, teaching artist and producer for the theatre who has devoted her professional life to exploring the intersection of traditional Japanese and contemporary American theatre. She is a founding member of Theater Nohgaku. She has studied noh under Richard Emmert, Matsui Akira, Nomura Shiro, and Oshima Kinue and kyogen with Ishida Yukio and Yuriko Doi. She is the former artistic director of Theater of Yugen from 2001 to 2014.

Ogasawara Hiroaki
Ogasawara Hiroaki is an Izumi-ryu style Kyogen performer. He studied under the first head of Man-Kyogen, Nomura Man, as well as Nomura Manzo the 9th, and his father Ogasawara Tadashi. In 2017, he started the Atelier Oga Paris and has performed kyogen regularly in the Paris Ennen no Kai with his father. While inheriting tradition, his French activities allow him to explore new possibilities in Japanese culture from a global perspective.

Ogaswawara Tadashi
Ogaswawara Tadashi is Nohgaku Master in the Izumi-ryu style of Kyogen. An intangible cultural asse, he studied under the first head of Man-Kyogen, Nomura Man (Living National Treasure) as well as Nomura Manzo (deceased) the 8th, and Nomura Manzo the 9th. In additional to the classical repertory, he has appeared in new kyogen pieces and served as movement coach for TV dramas. He has performed frequently abroad, most notably in Paris.

John Oglevee
John Oglevee is a theater artist and noh practitioner. He is a licensed teacher of the Kita-ryu and a founding member of Theatre Nohgaku. He has participated in many Theatre Nohgaku tours and has taught noh workshops throughout Europe, North America and Asia. He currently lectures on noh and Japanese performance at Musashino University and Hosei University.

Omura Sadamu
Omura Sadamu is a shite-kata of the Kita school. He studied under Kita Minoru, the 15th head of the Kita school. Among the many noh that he has performed, he has performed in notable pieces including Okina, Dojoji, Shakkyo, Mochizuki, Motomezuka, Aya no Tsuzumi, Kinuta, Omu Komachi, and Sotowa-Gomachi. He has been designated an Important Intangible Cultural Asset. He is the sponsor of the Meikyoku Noh no Kai, Sadamu-kai and Minoru-Kai.

Oshima Kinue
Oshima Kinue is a Kita-ryū shite performer. A graduate of the Department of Japanese Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, as a child she studied under her Oshima Hisami and her father Oshima Masanobu. In addition to performing in Japan, she has performed abroad in several English-language noh, including Sumida River (2015), Between the Stones (2020) and Pagoda (2009) (2011). She teaches noh at several universities including Hijiyama University.

Oshima Teruhisa
Oshima Teruhisa is a shite-kata of the Kita-school and has been designated an Intangible Cultural Asset by the Japanese Ministry of Culture. He is a Fifth-generation noh performer and made his debut at the age of three dancing the shimai of Shojo. He has participated in numerous overseas tours of classical noh. In recent years he has been involved in ground breaking performances such as English language Noh, sign language Noh, as well as VR Noh and 3D Noh using cutting-edge technology. He continues to be actively engaged in activities that explore new possibilities for the performance of noh.

Mika Oskarson Kindstrand
Mika Oskarson Kindstrand is an actor and director based in Sweden. She began studying noh in 2017, performed in the English-language noh Emily in 2019 and joined Theater Nohgaku in 2020. As a child, she was exposed to Asian and Western theater through the World Theater Project and has performed in theater productions in Sweden and elsewhere.

Sakurai Hitoshi
Sakurai Hitoshi is a Komparu-ryū taiko performer and has been designated an Important Intangible Cultural Asset by Japan’s Ministry of Culture. He studied under Komparu Soemon, Mishima Gentaro, Oe Teruo, and Komparu Kunikazu. He regularly performs in Tokyo and has also appeared in several English noh including The Gull (2006), Crazy Jane (2007), and Pagoda (2009) (2011).

Kevin Salfen
Kevin Salfen is a musicologist, composer, film director, and producer. A member of Theatre Nohgaku, he is a professor of musicology at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts for two major intercultural projects: the film Phoenix Fire and the performance/exhibition In a Memory Palace.

Laura Sampson
Laura Sampson is a vocal performer and storyteller-writer. Based in London, she began studying noh in 2011 and joined Theatre Nohgaku in 2014 appearing in Sumida River (2015), Emily (2019), Between the Stones (2020), and the French-language noh Medea (2023).

Sumikoma Mitsuhiko
Sumikoma Mitsuhiko is a Ko school kotsuzumi performer. He began studying kotsuzumi as a child with his father, Sumikoma Yukihide, and later with Sowa Masahiro. He is a graduate of the Japanese music department of Tokyo University of Arts. He performs and teaches in his home town of Kanazawa as well as in Tokyo. He has performed in numerous foreign performances of noh including in Germany and Italy. He presently teaches kotsuzumi at Tokyo University of the Arts. He has been designated an Intangible Culltural Asset by the Japanese Ministry of Cultural.

David Surtasky
David Surtasky is a photographer, stage artist, musician and Technical Director for Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s College. He is trained in Kita-ryu style. As a member of Theatre Nohgaku, he has participated in several productions including Pagoda (2009) (2011). His photographs have been published in a number of academic journals, magazines and books including Theater Topics Journal, Ricepaper Magazine, and Theater: Its Art and Craft..

Ashley Thorpe
Ashley Thorpe is a lecturer in the Department of Drama and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London. A member of Theatre Nohgaku, he is co-founder and program director of the Noh Training Project UK. In addition to writing the original English language noh Emily (2019), he participated in the French language noh Medea (2023).

Lluis Valls
Lluís Valls joined Theatre of Yugen in 1993, acting and assistant directing for Yuriko Doi. He became co-Artistic Director from 2002–08, and currently serves as the Lead Artist and Director of their Kyogen Company. He has studied Izumi Kyogen with Yukio Ishida and Go Iida; Kita Noh with Richard Emmert, Akira Matsui, and Teruhisa Oshima. In 2002 Lluis co-founded Clowns on a Stick, creating short and long form clown pieces. .

Deborah Brevoort
Deborah Brevoort is a writer of plays, musicals, and opera. Her work “The Women of Lockerbie” has been produced many times internationally. Her comedies and dramas have been shown in theatres across the US. In 2023, she received the Campbell Opera Librettist Award from Opera America.

Kitazawa Hideta
Kitazawa Hideta is a wood sculptor and noh mask maker. He learned traditional wood carving from his father, Kitazawa Ikkyo, and currently produces many noh and kyogen masks in addition to commissioned shinsaku “new” masks. In addition for both Blue Moon Over Memphis and Oppenheimer, he has carved many noh masks for Theater Nohgaku, including for Crazy Jane, Gettysburg, and Sumida River. A book on his work entitled Noh and Kyogen Masks has been published by Prestel in autumn 2024.

Allan West
Allan West is an artist employing traditional Japanese brush and pigment technique to a variety of both contemporary and traditional style work. After studying painting in the United States, he studied traditional Japanese painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, and in 1999 opened his gallery and studio, “Edokoro Allan West,” in Yanaka, Tokyo. He creates a variety of works, including folding screen paintings, sliding door paintings, and hanging scrolls. In Blue Moon Over Memphis, he created the nakahikari (a type of fan) used by the shite.

Matsui Akira
Matsui Akira is a Kita-ryū shite performer and holds the designation of Important Intangible Cultural Asset. He has actively taught and performed noh both in Japan and abroad, and collaborated with performers in numerous productions worldwide. In 2016, for his vast international activities he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2018, he was awarded the Regional Cultural Meritorious Individual Award by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan.

Related booklet

• 

  エルビスの幽玄 － 能が英語になったとき（The Yūgen of Elvis—Performing Noh in English）

  A publication accompanying the English noh performance.
  Blue Moon Over Memphis: Deborah Brevoort’s complete English text with Japanese translation along with explanations of the highlights of the music, costumes and masks as well as accompanying photos.
  A volume revealing English noh and the background to the creation of Blue Moon Over Memphis.

  Editorial Supervision: Yanai Initiative
  Language: Japanese
  Specifications: 223mm x 174mm, soft cover, 120 pages (in color)
  Price: 2,200 yen (with Tax)
  Contents:
  ・What is English Noh—Beyond Culture and Language (Dialogue between Richard Emmert and Narita Minako)
  ・Articles by the author and performers of Blue Moon Over Memphis.
  ・Explanations of the music, costumes and masks of Blue Moon Over Memphis.
  ・Round-table Discussion: Noh in the World—Noh and Its Possibilities as a Global Theatre
  ・Essays: What is Noh? (Takemoto Mikio) / Thoughts on English Noh (Kodama Ryuichi)

Theatre Nohgaku

Theatre Nohgaku is a collective of artists committed to sharing the art of Nohgaku with global audiences. While during Nohgaku’s nearly 700 year history it has predominantly been performed in Japanese, we feel that the form of Noh is structured in a way that it transcends language and speaks to the human soul. Noh’s sparsity offers audiences a way to engage with challenging themes.

Yanai Initiative

Thanks to the donation from Mr. Tadashi Yanai (Chairperson, President and CEO, Fast Retailing Co. Ltd.), the Yanai Initiative has launched in 2014 as a joint collaborative project under Waseda University and the University of California, Los Angeles, aiming for transmission and propagation of the Japanese humanities.
Starting from 2020 Spring, we have reinforced our management structure for expanding its activities, specifically, providing academic symposia, introducing the Japanese traditional culture and the events that combines video, literature, and music. Furthermore, building the website as the research data repository that integrate useful information for researchers, also being providing information or impressive events in this field that beyond the general concept of Japanese humanities.