Koki Mitani

Koki Mitani

Playwright and director. Born in Tokyo in 1961, Koki Mitani graduated from the theater course of the Department of Arts of Nihon University. While in university, in 1983 he got together with fellow students to form the company “Tokyo Sunshine Boys.” With a strong focus on comedy, he has written many well-made plays with clearly depicted characters. In addition to theater, he has written the numerous screenplays for the television, and a good number of his representative works have been made into movies, such as Twelve Gentle Japanese (premiered 1990), taking its situation from the coming introduction of a jury court system in Japan; Warai no Daigaku (University of Laughs) (premiered 1996), a play about the cat-and-mouse game played between a light theater playwright and the censors during World War II (adapted in English translation by Richard Harris as The Last Laugh and performed in the UK and Japan in 2007); the human drama Ryoma no Tsuma to sono Otto to Aijin (Ryoma’s Wife, Her Husband and His Mistress) (Premiered 2000), about the life of the widow of the late Edo period hero Sakamoto Ryoma. Mitani made his debut as a film director in 1997 with Radio no Jikan (premiered 1993), a comedy he wrote in his theater company days about the slapstick goings-on during the recording of a radio drama, since then he has continued his activities as a film director as well. His theater company Tokyo Sunshine Boys has suspended their activities for 30 years as Mitani announced after their 1997 production Tokyo Sunshine Boys no Wana . His awards include the 4th Yomiuri Theater Grand Prix “Best Play” award for Warai no Daigaku , the 3rd Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award for Matoryoshika (1999), the 45th Kishida Drama Award for his first musical Okepi! (2000) and the Akimoto Matsuo Award of the 7th Asahi Performing Arts Awards of 2008, among others.