Soh Kitamura

Soh Kitamura

Born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan in 1952, Soh Kitamura is a playwright, novelist and essayist. He began activities as a playwright and director for his own company “TPO Shi-dan” (established 1979) and then with companies with different names, including “Suisei ‘86” (established 1982) and “Project Navi” (established 1986). He won attention as a standard bearer of the small-theater scene with his representative play Hogiuta (Ode to Joy) that premiered in 1979 and continued to be performed for some 15 years (he ended his theater company activities in 2003). In 1984, Kitamura won 28th Kishida Drama Award for his play 11 nin no Shonen (Eleven Boys). For the play Yuki wo Watatte Dai ni ko Tsuki no Akarusa (Across the Snow: The Second Draft ＆ Moonlight) he won the Kinokuniya Theater Awards for Personal Achievement. From 2013, under the production of the SIS company, Kitamura began writing a new series of plays as an homage to Japanese literature. The first work of this series title Goodbye and based on the Osamu Dazai’s unfinished novel by the same name won 17th Tsuruya Nanboku Memorial Award for drama. To date, Kitamura has written approximately 200 plays. He is also active as a novelist, radio drama author and essayist, etc. In 2013, he published a book title Rennai-teki Engeki-ron (Love-like Theater Theory) (Matsumoto Kobo publishers).