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Mar. 4, 2017

The 61st (2017) Kishida Drama Award winner is Makoto Ueda’s Kiteketsukarubeki Shin Sekai

The final judging of the 61st Kishida Drama Awards organized by Hakusuisha Publishing Co. took place on February 27th and the winning drama chosen was Ueda’s Kiteketsukarubeki Shin-Sekai. This play is a science fiction comedy set in Osaka’s Shinsekai district that toured ten cities around Japan in a production by Ueda’s popular Kyoto-based theater company Europe-Kikaku. In the juror comment about the play, Akio Miyazawa said: “In addition to being perplexed by the magnificence of its literary style, I have to admit that it also made me laugh out loud several times. I was greatly impressed by the highly skilled writing and the sharpness of the sensitivity it reveals.”

Makoto Ueda was born in 1979 and is a native of Kyoto. While still a student at Doshisha University, he started the theater unit Europe-Kikaku in 1998 and has since served as its playwright and director. As a playwright, Ueda has remained dedicated to the pursuit of comedy, and among his representative works are Summertime Machine Blues, which was also made into a movie, and Magare! Spoon (Bend, Spoon!; based on Ueda’s original Fuyu no Yurigera). This was the first time a work by Ueda was nominated for the Kishida Drama Award and his first win.

Winner Profile
Makoto Ueda
Born in Kyoto in 1979. Ueda is the representative of the theater company Europe-Kikaku and the playwright and director for all of its regular productions. He is also active as a writer for plays outside his own company, as well as for movies and dramas. He also plans and creates programs for television and radio. Since 2003, Ueda has had his plays Fuyu no Yurigera, Kakomu Formation, Heibon na Way and Windows 5000 selected as a finalists for the OMS Drama Award. In 2010, the television anime Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei (The Tatami Galaxy) that he contributed composition and script for won the Grand Prize in the anime category of the Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival. Ueda was also the winner of the Ohkiri (comical show) event “Dynamite Kansai 2010 3rd”. He also appears in numerous events like Kikaku Night. In 2012, Ueda contributed the script and some of the directing for the drama Dragon Seinen-dan. (From the Europe-Kikaku website) http://www.europe-kikaku.com/

Finalists (In Japanese alphabetical order)
Satoko Ichihara’s Keimiko Fumowa (stage script)
Makoto Ueda’s Kiteketsukarubeki Shin-Sekai (stage script)
Ikue Nagata’s SOETSU Kan-kuni no Shiroi Taiyo (stage script)
Mariko Ono’s THE GAME OF POLYAMORY LIFE (stage script)
Misaki Setoyama’s Rachi mo Naku, Yogore Naku (stage script)
Shinichiro Hayashi’s PORTAL (stage script)
Naotaka Hiratsuka’s Koko wa Canada ja nai (stage script)
Taichi Yamagata’s Dog-man No Life (stage script)

Jury
Oriza Hirata, Ryo Iwamatsu, Akio Miyazawa, Hideki Noda, Toshiki Okada, and Keralino Sandorovich

Kishida Kunio Drama Award (Website in Japanese)
http://www.hakusuisha.co.jp/kishida/