Shiki Theatre Company employs around 1,400 actors and staff, and stages more than 3,000 performances to around 3 million audience members a year.
[3] The Shiki Theatre Company was established on July 14, 1953 by 10 university students including Keita Asari [ja] (浅利慶太).
However, in the late 1970s, they branched out into other forms of theatre and found success by staging western and Japanese musicals.
The series consists of Ri Kōran, a musical about the famous Manchurian-Japanese singer; Foreign Hill (異国の丘, Ikoku no Oka) which tells the story of Japanese prisoners of war at an internment camp in Siberia; and Southern Cross (南十字星, Minami Shūjisei) about the trials of innocent B and C-class war criminals in Indonesia.
The company welcomes all talented performers and does not cast well-known stars from television or movies simply based on their fame.
[1] As new plays are produced on Broadway and West End each year and performed worldwide, Shiki has been the first one to introduce them to audiences in Japan.
Shiki also worked with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, the composer of musicals including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.