IATL’s New Fellow: Hideki Noda, Artistic Director of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre

The IATL is proud and honoured to officially announce its new elected Fellow. Hideki Noda is widely regarded as one of Asia’s most original theatre artists. Since 2009, he has been the Artistic Director of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. He is a highly accomplished playwright, director, and actor. He is the author of a few of the most imaginative adaptations in contemporary Japanese theatre, some of them based on traditional Kabuki scripts. Noda is also actively involved in important international productions, recurrently working with British actors such as Kathryn Hunter. He has won the major drama awards in Japan, and was awarded the 2009 Asahi Prize. He was appointed an Honorary Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in October 2009 and he received the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his contributions to education and culture in 2011. Often referred to as “Japan’s iconic avant-garde stage hero”, Noda is a true leader of experimental performance in Asia and beyond. The IATL Fellowship is awarded in recognition of his impressive career as one of the world’s most significant theatre innovators.

“Hideki Noda is simply an extraordinary artist. His versatility as an actor seems inexhaustible, and yet this is only one dimension of his creative universe. Noda is a playwright whose texts reflect a unique mixture of traditional Japanese theatricality and global modernity. He is also one of those gifted directors who know how to inspire not only their actors, but also their spectators to leave all their cultural suppositions behind, to look for something new, to discover something new. In this sense, he is a true theatre leader of our times,” stated Octavian Saiu, Founder and President of IATL.