Color of Life
nytheatre.com q&a preview by Yasuhiro Ito
June 23, 2013
What is your job on this show?
Compose,Arrange,Actor.
What is your show about?
New musical from Japan about the color of love & life.
Are there boundaries as to what kind of theatre you will take part in?
Of course not. I've never felt any boundaries. They are all the same
to me. Wether it be playing, singing or composing; classical music,
pop, jazz or rock. Same goes for acting.
Are audiences in New York City different from audiences in other cities/countries where you’ve performed? If so, how?
The 1st time I every sang in NY was January, last year. It was in
Midtown with my cast-mate of Color of Life (Shino Frances). The
audience in NY breathed the way I breathed, and felt the emotions that I was feeling. And when I sang a song well, they expressed how happy they were with everything they had. I was ecstatic! It was the first time I ever felt like I had a conversation with the audience during a performance. This communication took my singing to a whole other level. This would not happen in Japan...Japanese are stoic bunch.
How did you meet your fellow artists/collaborators on this show?
My cast-mate (Shino Frances) and I were in college together. I was
singing at a school festival when she came up to me and said hello.
The Writer (Sachiko Ishimaru) is my theatre partner in Japan. We put
up a fantastic production of Henrik Ibsen's PEER GYNT in Japan, that I composed and she directed. (I wrote a whole of 46 peices!)
Which “S” word best describes your show: SMOOTH, SEXY, SMART, SURPRISING?
A "SEXY"woman, a "SMART" book, a "SURPRISING" twist. (And in the end, it will leave you "SMILING")
If you had ten million dollars that you had to spend on theatrical endeavors, how would you use the money?
I would take our company, the 3 of us, out for a fancy dinner on opening night. (I love oysters, so our 2nd stop would be an oyster
bar!) There we will discuss how we want to proceed in using all the
money for another run of the show. I already know what money we need for the music. Of course it shall be a live orchestra. We'd need
Piano, Guitar, Bass, Violin, Cello, Drums, Percussion and Synthesizer, at the very least. (That's about the scale of instruments I used for the current accompaniment.) Set, Costumes, Lights...It makes me happy just thinking about it. Even if we don't have this kind of money now, maybe the 3 of us will still have that fancy dinner before we go back to Japan.
