Satoko Ichihara
Satoko Ichihara
Playwright, director and novelist, Ichihara was born in Osaka in 1988 and grew up in Fukuoka prefecture. She studied theater at J. F. Oberlin University. From 2011, she has led the theater unit “Q.” Ichihara is known for creating and directing dramas that deal with human actions and the discomfort of the physiological needs of the body with a distinctive use of language and physicality. In scripts that treat with frankness the subjects of sexuality or intercourse and interbreeding between different species or races from a female point of view, the audience can be showered with words that are physically stimulating and the actors on stage may use devices like caricature or at times showing their own faults as they act out the script with full physical output and expression. Her plays to pose questions about the validity of the way subjects like sex and breeding have conventionally been defined from a male-centric or human-centric perspective but now becomes invalid, and she can also use radical means to question the ethical and moral perspective that have been defined for society’s majority.
Ichihara has been a Junior Fellow Artist of the Saison Foundation.
In 2011, Ichihara won the 11th AAF Drama Award for her play Mushi (Insects). In 2020, Ichihara’s play The Bacchae – Holstein Milk Cows won the 64th Kunio Kishida Drama Award.
In June of 2019 Ichihara’s short story collection Mamito no Tenshi was published by Hayakawa Publishing Corporation.
