Kickstarter

Hello, my name is Jun Kim and I'm the artistic director of Kurotama Kikaku. I'm originally from Japan now I live in NYC. http://www.kurotamakikaku.com/

Today, I want to talk about the play that I've been working on the last three years. It's called “Kutsukake Tokijiro”.  It’s a Japanese lone wolf gangster story written in 1928.

When I first read Kutsukake Tokijiro in January 2009, the story grabbed my soul because it’s explores the themes of love and obligation and the spirit of self-sacrifice. After Tokijiro slays Sanzo, a rival yakuza, he embarks on an aimless journey with Sanzo's wife and son, blurring the boundaries between his obligation to Sanzo and his unspoken feelings of love for Sanzo’s wife. It’s a Japanese classical entertainment play.

So I started to work on this human drama to transform into an experimental theatrical fantasy, using musical performance, dance, and visual arts. And I wanted to draw from diverse cultural influences, both traditional and modern, Eastern and Western, to form bilingual hybrid J-Pop theatre. This hybrid will incorporate elements of Western movies (e.g. movie “Shane”-1953), Spanish flamenco, Japanese pop culture (e.g. anime and manga), and movements originating from Noh, Kabuki and contemporary dance.

My first step was a staged reading with the original Japanese text to see what it would be like. For two staged reading performances in a small studio we had 80 audience members attending, including those who don't speak Japanese. After that performance, I felt that I had a grip of this play.

The next step was to translate the play into English so that I could introduce the play to English speaking audiences. So I took the book and video of the staged reading to a friend in Japan. She kindly offered to collaborate translation of the book.

The third step was a studio performance of the play in July 2010.  I got actors, musicians, a creative team, and great support from our fellow friends and artistes. We did the very first English transliteration of Kutsukake Tokijiro, and we had a completely sold out hit and it was a big success.

Now I wanted to bring it to the next level -- Off Off Broadway. So I had to find the theater. It had to be the right space for the play.  I looked around at all of the theaters in NYC, but I couldn't find one. Then one day I was running around looking for theaters, and I bumped into the artistic director of the Flea Theater who I had worked with previously.  I told him about my project.  And now, through the generous support of the Flea Theater, Kutsukake Tokijiro will be an Off Off Broadway production in November 2011. Runs November 10-27 Downstairs @ The Flea http://www.theflea.org/ 

In order to make this production a success, we must raised $5,000. It will cover the set, costume, and rehearsal space rental costs. We are asking theatre and art lovers like you to help us accomplish our goal, and be a part of helping many people watch and share this wonderful Japanese human drama with us.

Any donation would be welcome and inspiring to this production.

Thank you.