Yukio horio biography of william

Principal Project Participants

DAVID CRANDALL(Co-Composer, Performer) holds a double degree in Music Composition and Japanese Language & Literature from the University of Michigan. In 1986 he was admitted to the Hōshō Noh Theater as an apprentice and worked as a professional noh performer in Tokyo for five years. Crandall’s Western-style compositions have been performed by marimbist Keiko Abe and by the Tokyo Quintet (JUGGLER and YAVANNA). He has composed short film scores (NIGHTERS and CRIME AND PUNISHMENT) and written the words and music for three children’s musicals (JOHNNY THE KING, THE MERCHANT OF CHEAT STREET, THE MOON ROBE).  His noh-based work includes the words and music for two original English-language noh plays (CRAZY JANE and THE LINDEN TREE), and music for Carrie Preston’s ZAHDI DATES AND POPPIES, Elizabeth Dowd’s GETTYSBURG, and David Surtasky’s EVENTIDE. Crandall also co-wrote the script and composed the music for a short film titled WIND WELL directed and co-written by James Cook, which was released in 2021.

KRISTIN JACKSON(Performer) is a Philippine-Irish-American choreographer born and raised in Manila. She has performed with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and the Broadway and National productions of THE KING AND I. Her company, Kristin Jackson Dance, was formed in 1990. Her dances for KJD along with choreography for theater, film and opera have been seen in both New York and Manila. A highlight of her creative work inspired by Noh theater was a multimedia collaboration with Nagasaki composer Keiko Fujiie, based on stories told by their and other families of the Japanese occupation in the Philippines. Ongoing studies in Noh theater have continued to inspire her work both as a choreographer and performer. Jackson holds a M.F.A. in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and has served on the dance faculties of NYU and Queens College of the City Univer

English theatre director and writer (born 1948)

John Newport Caird (born 22 September 1948) is an English stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was for many years a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and is the principal guest director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm (Dramaten).

Early years

Caird was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to English parents George Bradford Caird, Oxford theologian and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford and Viola Mary Newport (born 1922 in Reigate, Surrey), poet and librarian.

He lived in Montreal and attended Selwyn House School. His family moved back to England in 1959 to Oxford, where he attended Magdalen College School from 1959 to 1967. He studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School from 1967 to 1969.

Caird worked as an actor and stage manager at various English repertory theatres and in London's West End before embarking on his directorial career at Contact Theatre, in Manchester in 1973.

Career

Theatre

Caird was an associate director of Contact Theatre for two years, from 1973 to 1975, where he directed plays by Shakespeare, Christopher Bond, John Osborne, James Saunders, Samuel Beckett, wrote and acted in Theatre in Education programmes for Manchester's schools and prisons, and was an actor and musician in plays by Brecht, Goldoni and Jellicoe.

He then worked as a freelance director for various fringe theatre companies. For Sidewalk Theatre he directed Last Resort by Peter Flannery. For Avon Touring he directed Regina versus Stephens by the late David Illingworth.

Caird also taught for one semester at Ottawa University Drama Department, Canada, where he directed The Changeling by Middleton and Rowley. In 1975, he founded, with Stephen Barlow and others, Circle of Muses – a touring music theatre tr

This morning on Twitter a stunning poster of Ran reminded me of my awe and wonder for Kurosawa’s films. Yes, I’ve blogged about Kurosawa before but it struck me that Throne of Blood and Ran get much attention while the marvellous The Bad Sleep Well is less known and less praised. Here’s a short piece about that film which contains moments of pure cinematic genius.

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In his book Theatre of Chaos William Demastes states that ‘Hamlet is like a sponge. Unless produced in a stylized or antiquarian fashion, it immediately absorbs the problems of our time… its philosophical dimensions are as rich and culturally moveable as its political dimensions.’

Kurosawa sets his version of Hamlet in contemporary post-war Japan. During the 20 century Japan transformed from a feudal empire to an industrial super state, and the transition was not a smooth one. When Japan surrendered at the end of the Second World War the emperor declared, “We must endure the unendurable”, and for the first time in their history Japan became an occupied country. Traditional feudal values were repressed by the American occupiers, there were political and economic reforms, democratic institutions were set up. A whole new way of life had to be adopted – some threw themselves into it with a self-destructive force, others, like Kurosawa, approached it carefully, adapted to it and made it their own. He was given the chance to make films about subjects that had never been tackled before – one of them being the social chaos of the post war years. Wartime austerity had been replaced by indulgence and excess. He said:

I wanted to make a film of some social significance. At last I decided to do something about corruption, because it has always seemed to me that graft, bribery, etc, on a public level is the worst crime that there is.