Masaaki Akahori

Masaaki Akahori

Born in Chiba Prefecture, Akahori joined the performance collective Stage 14° in 1994. When it disbanded in 1996, he formed The Shampoo Hat and since then has written and directed, as well as acted in, all their productions. Akahori’s early plays were skit-like situations, but since 1998 he has used very ordinary settings such as a middle-class family’s kitchen, a room in an apartment, or the roof of a building in which he creates an existential theatrical space for his subject matter. While exchanging laughs, the characters and their lives are depicted in a thoroughly real and banal way, laying bare the awkwardness, hilarity, cruelty, and even insanity inherent in human nature. Akahori also writes and directs productions for other theater companies, and writes scripts for many screen productions. The Shampoo Hat’s 2007 work Sono yoru no samurai (The Samurai That Night) was short-listed for the Kishida Drama Award in 2008.