Naoki Sugawara
Photo: Nanako Tomioka
Naoki Sugawara
Born in 1983, Sugawara is an actor and certified nursing care worker. A member of Oriza Hirata’s Seinendan Theater Company since 2010, Sugawara has pursued his career in theater while working as a caregiver at special care homes for the elderly. He relocated to the town of Wake in Okayama Prefecture in September of 2012 following the Great East Japan Earthquake, where he founded the theater unit OiBokkeShi and began the Aging and Theater Workshop program. With an 88-year-old man named Tadao Okada whom he met during a workshop as the lead actor, OiBokkeShi held its first performance in 2015; Theatre of Wandering: Night Never Gets Darker was set in the shopping arcade in front of Wake Station, Since then, Sugawara has been working under the concept of “bringing the knowledge of theater to caregiving, bringing the depth of caregiving knowledge to the theater studio.” The works that OiBokkeShi have presented up to now include High School for the Elderly (2015), Portable Toilet Theater (2018), and Re-Creation Ceremony (2023). In 2016, he shifted his base of operations to the town of Nagi, Okayama. He is involved in many invitational performances and projects outside his own company such as a collaboration with Saitama Gold Theater in 2018 as part of World Gold Theater to create Theatre of Wandering: Night Never Gets Darker – Urawa Version, and an OiBokkeShi and Mie Center for the Arts co-production of art projects such as Enjoying Care and Aging Brightly (since 2017). In 2018 he won the 69th Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (development of the arts).（Updated Jan.2025n 1983, Sugawara is an actor and certified nursing care worker. A member of Oriza Hirata’s Seinendan Theater Company since 2010, Sugawara has pursued his career in theater while working as a caregiver at special care homes for the elderly. He relocated to the town of Wake in Okayama Prefecture in September of 2012 following the Great East Japan Earthquake, where he founded the theater unit OiBokkeShi and began the Aging and Theater Workshop program. With an 88-year-old man named Tadao Okada whom he met during a workshop as the lead actor, OiBokkeShi held its first performance in 2015; Theatre of Wandering: Night Never Gets Darker was set in the shopping arcade in front of Wake Station, Since then, Sugawara has been working under the concept of “bringing the knowledge of theater to caregiving, bringing the depth of caregiving knowledge to the theater studio.” The works that OiBokkeShi have presented up to now include High School for the Elderly (2015), Portable Toilet Theater (2018), and Re-Creation Ceremony (2023). In 2016, he shifted his base of operations to the town of Nagi, Okayama. He is involved in many invitational performances and projects outside his own company such as a collaboration with Saitama Gold Theater in 2018 as part of World Gold Theater to create Theatre of Wandering: Night Never Gets Darker – Urawa Version, and an OiBokkeShi and Mie Center for the Arts co-production of art projects such as Enjoying Care and Aging Brightly (since 2017). In 2018 he won the 69th Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (development of the arts).（Updated in January 2025）
OiBokkeShi
https://oibokkeshi.net/
