Toshiki Okada
Playwright / Director / Novelist. He formed the theater company “chelfitsch” in 1997, and is known for the unique relationship between language and the body found in his approach. In 2007, he participated in the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, held in Brussels, with his work “Five Days in March.” Since this debut of his work overseas, he has continued to present works not only domestically but also internationally, putting on performances in over 90 cities across Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Since 2016, he has also consistently created and directed works in a repertory program at a renowned public theater in Germany. In 2020, his work “The Vacuum Cleaner” (Münchner Kammerspiele) and in 2022, “Doughnuts” (Thalia Theater, Hamburg) were selected as part of the Berliner Theatertreffen’s “10 Remarkable Productions.” He received the 27th Yomiuri Theater Awards Selection Committee Special Prize for his work, “Pratthana - A Portrait of Possession,” a stage adaptation of a contemporary Thai novel featuring Thai actors. His work “Unfulfilled Ghost and Monster - ZAHA / TSURUGA” (KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre), which utilizes the narrative structure of noh, won the 72nd Yomiuri Prize for Literature (Play/Scenario Award) and the 25th Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award. In 2021, he directed the opera “Yuzuru” (All Japan Opera Co-Production Project). As a novelist, he published “The End of the Moment We Had” (Shinchōsha) in 2007, which won the 2nd Kenzaburō Ōe Prize. In 2022, he received the 35th Mishima Yukio Prize and the 64th Kumanichi Literary Award for his novel “Broccoli Revolution” (Shinchōsha).
The theater company chelfitsch was founded in 1997 by Toshiki Okada, who writes and directs all of its productions. Applauded for its distinctive methodology, which applies the relationship between quirky speech and physical movements, it attracts keen attention, both inside and outside Japan, as a troupe in the vanguard of contemporary theater. Its slovenly, "noisy" physicality, which seems to exaggerate ordinary gestures at times and seems not to do so at others, was even likened to dance. The company made its debut abroad in 2007, when it performed “Five Days in March” at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, which is regarded as one of the most important festivals on the European performing arts scene, in Brussels, Belgium. It has since performed works in a total of more than 90 cities in Asia, Europe, and North America. In 2011, “Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech” received the critics’ award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre in Montreal, Canada. In more recent years, the troupe has performed in works whose production rested on international collaboration with the world’s major festivals and theaters around the world, specifically: “Current Location” (2012), “Ground and Floor” (2013), “Super Premium Soft Double Vanilla Rich” (2014), “Time’s Journey Through a Room” (2016), and “Five Days in March – Re-creation” (2017). It continues to constantly update its methodology, which revolves around the relationship between speech and body, and explore new avenues of expression unbound by conventional dramaturgy. In 2018, it produced and exhibited/performed “Beach, Eyelids, and Curtains: chelfitsch's EIZO-Theater” at the Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto. This piece uses projected images (“eizo”) to bring theatrical space into being. In 2019-2020, it collaborated with the artist Teppei Kaneuji and produced "Eraser Mountain" at KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2019 and "Eraser Forest" at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. It performed a single artistic concept in two different types of space and used the way of "EIZO-Theater” as well.