Noda Map
Hideki Noda OBE is a multi-award-winning Japanese playwright, theatre director, and actor. With his company Yume no Yuminsha he won Japan's most prestigious theatre accolade, the Kishida Drama Award, and was the emblem of the country's vibrant youth-theatre and small-scale Theatre Movements in the 70s and 80s. The company broke records by drawing 26,000 people to a one-day event at which he staged his version of The Ring of the Nibelungs - presented as a Stonehenge trilogy - at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo. The company presented work across Japan and at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival and New York International Art Festival, before disbanding in 1992, and the following year, he founded NODA MAP after studying in the UK. Hideki Noda has worked extensively in the UK: his Red Demon played the Young Vic in 2003, and The Diver was performed at Soho Theatre in 2008. The first show he wrote in English was The Bee, which was born from a workshop with London actors in 2006. It premiered at the Soho Theatre and received a 5 star review in Time Out, who called it a “highly unusual theatrical gem”.
The Bee subsequently played Tokyo in English and Japanese and has played New York. He frequently works with actress Kathryn Hunter. He has collaborated with international playwrights and thespians, and his works have been performed in 28 cities across 13 countries, including Japan. In 2022, he brought A Night At The Kabuki to London and Taipei to great acclaim. In January 2023, he became the first Japanese to receive the ISPA 2023 Distinguished Artist Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the international performing arts community. In 2008 he was appointed artistic director of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. He was awarded an OBE in October 2009.
“A RARE, UNIQUE TREAT THAT WILL
STAY WITH ME FOR A LONG TIME.”