Kimura Ryūnosuke is a founder and sole director of KAKUSHINHAN. He studied English Literature in the University ofTokyo, especially focused on Shakespeare. After studying direction under the renowned Japanesetheatre director, the late Ninagawa Yukio, he founded Theatre Company KAKUSHINHAN in 2012.KAKUSHINHAN has consecutively performed Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Othello, Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Richard III, Henry VI, Macbeth and other Shakespeare plays mainly in Tokyo, with Kimura directing every performance. Kimura updates Shakespeare as a contemporary entertainment by clashing these classic masterpieces with today’s society, thus shedding light onto the universality of these classic works from an entirely new angle.In recent years, under his concept of “Shakespeare Tokyo,” Kimura uses ready-made ubiquitous city products as props, sets innovative scenography created by collaborating with the actors’ creativeness, and boldly inserts domestic and international pop/rock music. Such modern-sensed diverse directions have collected much attention within Japan, and also foreign media, such as the JAPAN TIMES and British Arts Council.Kimura’s original script, Hamlet x SHIBUYA, has been translated into English and will be featured in the Arden Shakespeare published book Re-Imagining Shakespeare in Contemporary Japan (January 2021). The cover of the book bares a stage photo from Kimura’s direction of Hamlet. Also, Kimura has completed a poetical storybook of a Contemporary Myth, Kagunomiya (November 2020).
