COOKING UP Next In Annual Japan Society Play Reading Series

As part of its current 2019-2020 Performing Arts Season, Japan Society presents a staged reading of Cooking Up, by Japanese playwright Shoko Matsumura, led by Brooklyn-based director Jordana De La Cruz, taking place Monday, March 30 at 7:30 PM at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street). Cooking Up marks the 15th installment of the Society's annual Play Reading Series: Contemporary Japanese Plays in English Translation, introducing topical plays from emerging playwrights from Japan to artists and audiences in the U.S.

The real and the surreal come together at a small French restaurant in Japan in Cooking Up, one of the 2018 finalists for Japan's most prestigious award for contemporary plays, the Kishida Kunio Drama Award. The play takes an unusual turn when the head chef's wife asks her husband's mistress to join their household, taking the place of their beloved house cat, who has gone missing. Jordana De La Cruz, Co-Director of the OBIE Award-winning performance venue JACK in Brooklyn, directs this absurd sojourn into the private lives of the restaurant's employees. Playwright Shoko Matsumura joins in a post-performance Q&A with the audience and director. Cooking Up (Japanese title: Koshiraeru) was translated by Amanda Waddell, Program Officer, and Japan Society's Performing Arts Department.
Shoko Matsumura (Playwright) is a director and playwright born in Yokohama in 1984. Since she was a teenager, she has appeared in small theaters, or shogekijo, in Tokyo. After her intial performance in Toshiki Okada's solo play On the Harmful Effects of Marijuana (Marifana no gai ni tsuite), she has acted in many of the playwright/director's plays for his theater company chelfitsch.

Other theater companies she has worked with includes Okazaki Art Theatre, Yuenchi Saisei Jigyo-dan, Gessyoku Kagekidan and Potsudo-ru. She founded the theatrical troupe Momeraths in 2013, where she started writing and directing her own work. The name of the troupe was taken from a fictional creature in Lewis Carrol's nonsensical poem "Jabberwocky." She specializes in realistic plays with colloquial language that contain abstract side stories running alongside the main narrative. Her plays create chaotic worlds, in which the everyday and absurdism exist side by side. She is a recipient of the Execellent Direction Award and Audience Award at TOGA Theatre Artists' Competition in 2017, and a two-time finalist for the prestigious Kishida Kunio Award for Drama for Cooking Up (Koshiraeru) in 2017 and for Hanpuku to Junkan ni Fuzui suru Bon'yari no Boken in 2018.

Jordana De La Cruz (Director) is an Afro-Latina director, curator, and creative producer. She collaborates with active participants across multiple generations to examine and dismantle the stigmas that hold society captive. She creates performances, gatherings, and public programs sparking cross-cultural dialogue, empowering individuality, and expanding the concept of community with theatrical responses, workshops, and interdisciplinary conversations. Her work continually questions what it means to be free and, more urgently, how we help each other achieve this freedom. In 2015, she was instrumental in the creation of Public Programs at Park Avenue Armory and has continued to cultivate affordable, community-focused art and dialogue. She has previously directed and produced with JACK, La Mama, The Flea Theater, IATI Theater, INTAR Theatre, The Story Pirates, and Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, among others.

Japan Society's Performing Arts Program As announced, Japan Society's 2019-2020 Performing Arts Season features works by visionary artists in dance, music and theater. The current season launched with two sold-out shows: the traditional concert Reigakusha: Gagaku & Bugaku by the distinguished ensemble Reigakusha (September 21) and Kwaidan-Call of Salvation Heard from the Depth of Fear (October 24). Next, the Society presented the modern noh play Taiten, accompanied by Kagyu, one of the most popular pieces from the traditional kyogen repertoire (November 14 - 16).

Most recently, the Society presented The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood, by Suguru Yamamoto, as part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival (January 10 - 14). The upcoming slate includes Tabaimo's Fruits borne out of rust (March 6 - 7); the contemporary theater presentation Control Officers and the international premiere of 100 Meters, a new companion piece by Oriza Hirata and his company Seinendan (May 8 - 10); and a contemporary dance residency by Min Tanaka throughout the month of June, culminating in a world premiere entitled I am in a body on the Society's stage (June 24 - 26).

Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has introduced nearly 700 of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. Programs range from the traditional arts of noh, kyogen, bunraku and kabuki to cutting-Edge Theater, dance and music. The Program also commissions new works to non-Japanese artists, produces national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs. "At once diverse and daring, the program stands toe to toe with some of the most comprehensive cultural exchange endeavors today." --Back Stage.

Founded in 1907, Japan Society in New York City presents sophisticated, topical and accessible experiences of Japanese art and culture, and facilitates the exchange of ideas, knowledge and innovation between the U.S. and Japan. More than 200 events annually encompass world-class exhibitions, dynamic classical and cutting-edge contemporary performing arts, film premieres and retrospectives, workshops and demonstrations, tastings, family activities, language classes, and a range of high-profile talks and expert panels that present open, critical dialogue on issues of vital importance to the U.S., Japan and East Asia.

For more information, call 212-832-1155 or visit https://www.japansociety.org/.

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