Gekidan Kumo, meaning "The Cloud Theatre Company,"[1] was founded in 1963 by Tsuneari Fukuda, along with Hiroshi Akutagawa, Hiroyuki Nishimoto, and other members of the Bungakuza company of Shingeki theatre players.
[1] Thus many people were surprised when Bungakuza's leaders agreed to stage a tour of Communist China in 1961.
[1] Even more controversial was the decision to modify the script of the company's flagship play, "The Life of a Woman" (Onna no isshō), to accommodate the ideological demands of their Chinese hosts, which was seen as an abridgment of artistic freedom.
Under his direction, Gekidan Kumo performed numerous Shakespeare plays in Japanese translation, plays by western playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill and Bernard Shaw that Shingeki troupes had tended to ignore, and new plays written by Japanese playwrights.
In honoring Fukuda's legacy, to this day Gekidan Subaru continues to prominently feature Shakespeare plays in Japanese translation.