Yuko Matsumoto

Photo: Maiko Miyagawa

Yuko Matsumoto

Born in Hirakata, Osaka, in 1967, theater director Yuko Matsumoto graduated from Meiji University’s Department of Literature with a major in drama and theater arts. She joined Bungakuza Actors Institute in 1992 and was promoted to full member in 1997. In 1999, she studied in London for one year on the Agency for Cultural Affairs Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists. Her first production after returning to Japan, Pentecost, was awarded the 2002 Yuasa Yoshiko Prize, which is given to the best staging of a translated foreign language stage play. In 2006, she won the Mainichi Art Award Senda Koreya Prize for Nukegara (Bungakuza Atelier no Kai) and Peter Pan (Horipro). In 2019, Matsumoto won the Kinokuniya Drama Award for Personal Achievement and Excellence in Directing at the Yomiuri Theater Awards for Hito wa mina, Hitonamino (Matchpoint) and Three Winters (Bungakuza Atelier no Kai), and in 2020 won the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Award for Fifty-Four Eyes (Bungakuza).(Updated July 2024)