Yoroboshi

Satoko Ichihara

Presented by Japan Society

#NYC Premiere, #International

TICKETS
VENUE + SCHEDULE

Yoroboshi Images 1 and 2 © Jörg Baumann; Images 3 through 9 © Theater Commons Tokyo ’24 – Photo by Shun Sato.

Puncture the plastic skin, shatter the glass eyes, snap them in half — they can’t feel a thing. Can they? Satoko Ichihara, one of Japan’s most uncompromising playwright-directors, makes her greatly anticipated American debut with Yoroboshi, a queer refashioning of the centuries-old Japanese moral tale of a blind boy abandoned by his father. In trash-Barbie cosplay, a lone tayu (narrator) voices every role in a household of the discarded — a sex doll, a mannequin, a traffic dummy — over the unearthly sounds of biwa lute and electronics, while puppeteers drag them through a grotesquely comic tale of love, desire, illness and violence. This is a puppet theater stripped of its innocence: Ichihara’s ruthless, intimate work will cradle you like one of her dolls — and then break you.

Yoroboshi is performed in Japanese with English supertitles.

“A Japanese classic re-done to the bone.” —Critical Stages/Scènes critiques

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Born in 1988 in Osaka, Satoko Ichihara is a playwright, stage director, novelist and artistic director of the Kinosaki International Arts Center (KIAC). She studied drama at J.F. Oberlin University and has been running the Q theatre company since 2011. She writes and directs plays that deal with human behaviour, the physiology of the body and the discomfort surrounding these themes, using language and physical sensitivity. In 2011, she was awarded the Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Prize for her play Insects. In 2019, Satoko Ichihara published her first collection of stories, Mamito no tenshi (Mamito’s Angel). In the same year, The Bacchae-Holstein Milk Cows, based on a Greek tragedy, premiered at the 2019 Aichi Triennale and won the 64th Kishida Kunio Playwriting Prize. In 2021, she co-produced Madama Butterfly with Zurich’s Theater Neumarkt. In 2023, Yoroboshi premiered at Germany’s Theater der Welt festival, followed by performances throughout Japan and at the 2024 Festival d’Automne in Paris. Ichihara’s KITTY premiered at ROHM Theatre Kyoto in 2025, with additional performances at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels.

FUNDING + SUPPORT

Yoroboshi is supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan, Japan Arts Council, Arts Council Tokyo (Creation Grant), and The Saison Foundation, with additional support from Cheryl Henson. Production by General Incorporated Association Q.

VENUE NOTES + ACCESSIBILITY

Japan Society
333 E. 47th Street
New York, NY 10017

By Subway: 4/5/6/7/S to Grand Central, 6 to 51st Street/Lexington Avenue, E/M to Lexington Avenue/53rd Street.
By Bus: M15 to 47th Street, M101 / M102 to 47th Street, M50 (on weekdays) or M42.

Box Office Contact + Operation Hours
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. 212.715.1258 // boxoffice@japansociety.org

Venue Access
Japan Society is committed to offering programs and services that are accessible to all visitors. Public performance spaces, classrooms and restrooms are ADA compliant and accessible to everyone. We offer free gallery admission to patrons with disabilities and an accompanying Personal Care Assistant.

Appropriate Age Range
For Mature Audiences Only. No audience members under 18 will be admitted.

Content Warnings
Contains graphic depictions of physical and sexual violence and suicide.