Japan Society To Host Play Reading I'M TRYING TO UNDERSTAND YOU, BUT... On March 13

As part of its current Performing Arts Season, Fall 2022-Spring 2023, Japan Society presents a staged reading of I'm Trying to Understand You, But... by Japanese playwright Yuri Yamada, led by NYC-based director NJ Agwuna, taking place Monday, March 13 at 7:30 PM at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street). I'm Trying to Understand You, But... marks the 17th 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.

In this piece, Yamada portrays a dicey conversation between a young couple that starts as an unintended pregnancy reveal and ends in a gender-swapped discussion about how the incident came about. In Yamada's surreal depiction of this intense and topical fissure between the two, a pair of "French maids" named Libby and Prudie (one more liberal-minded and the other conservative) give running commentary throughout the couple's heart-to-heart. Playwright Yuri Yamada, a two-time Kishida Kunio Drama Award-nominee, joins in a post-show Q&A with the audience and director NJ Agwuna.

Tickets are $15 / $10 Japan Society members. Tickets can be purchased online at www.japansociety.org or by calling the Box Office at 212-715-1258 (M-F 9:00am - 5:00pm). Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street, between First and Second Avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 at 42nd Street-Grand Central Station or the E at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street). Before attending, view our current visitor policies and safety protocols here.

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

Yuri Yamada (Playwright) is a playwright, director and actor, born in 1992 in Tokyo. She founded a theater company ZEITAKU BINBOU in 2012 while she was still in college. She has been nominated as a finalist for Kishida Kunio Drama Award for two plays: Fiction City (2017) and Mixture (2019). In 2017, Everyone Fears the Nighttoured in China as the company's first international tour. From 2018 to 2021, the Chinese language production of this play was produced in collaboration with the local Chinese actors, and the play participated in the inaugural Aranya Theater Festival in 2021. Yuri was selected as a The Saison Foundation's Saison Fellows Program awardee in its 2020-2021 season. Most recently, Yuri has been writing for TV dramas as well as novels, and has written scripts for Abeme TV original drama 17.3 About a Sex, which was praised as "the Japanese equivalent of Netflix's hit series Sex Education."

NJ Agwuna (Director) is a freelance theatre and film director hailing from central Maryland. Performing from a young age, NJ began studying theatre at REP Stage Summer Institute, where she not only learned the art of acting, but was also inspired to pursue the adventurous life of directing. In 2018, she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts. Since moving to New York, she has been blessed to be able to work with many different artists. NJ believes that theatre shows us our history, illuminating things we have forgotten. She is drawn to the metamorphosis of theatre, whether it is retelling historical pieces through a new lens or questioning and investigating our present world through myth and spectacle. Working with companies such as Third Rail Productions and Punch Drunk has given her new insight into how to affect audiences in a way that makes them ask tough questions, connect to characters in new ways, and grow, shift and change their idea of what theatre is and their experience with it. She has worked on a national and international scale continuing to explore classic text, developing new plays, devising, and investigating new ways to explore trauma and mental illness through theatre.

Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has introduced nearly a 1,000 of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. This season, programs span the disciplines of opera, theater, traditional noh, puppetry, dance and more. In Fall 2022, Japan Society kicked off the season with an exclusive artist conversation focused on the North American Premiere of Catapult Opera's reimagining of Yukio Mishima's modern noh play Hanjo (September 14). Next, with 9000 Paper Balloons (October 28 - 30), local creative duo Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott deployed their singular puppetry styles in a captivating look at a secret weapons program in Imperial Japan that floated across the Pacific during WWII. On November 10, Japan Society hosted a "behind the scenes" talk with Basil Twist about his work on Joe Hisaishi and the Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of the beloved Studio Ghibli animated film My Neighbour Totoro, and to conclude 2022, the Kita Noh School returned to NYC with these two rarely performed noh plays from their traditional repertoire, Kotei and Makura Jido (December 1 - 3).

Launching Winter/Spring 2023, Japan Society presented the World Premiere of its opera commission note to a friend (January 12 - 15, part of PROTOTYPE Festival 2023), composed by David Lang and directed by Yoshi Oida, based on some of the last writings of legendary author Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story." Next up, traditional puppetry master Koryu Nishikawa V and New York/Chicago-based puppet artist Tom Lee approach esteemed writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa's deteriorating psyche through some of his most famous tales in AKUTAGAWA (February 23 - 25). The season rounds out with this presentation of the annual Play Reading Series, I'm Trying to Understand You, But...; and a work-in-progress dance piece titled Extinction Rituals by Brooklyn-based and butoh-inspired ensemble LEIMAY (June 9 - 10).

Japan Society is the premier organization connecting Japanese arts, culture, business, and society with audiences in NYC and around the world. In over 100 years of work, the Society has inspired generations by establishing itself as a pioneer in supporting international exchanges in arts and culture, business and policy, as well as education between Japan and the U.S. This year, Japan Society is celebrating its heritage through the 50th anniversary of its our landmark building, designed by the late architect Junzo Yoshimura, with the launch of a new distinct modern logo and visual identity.

Since the inception of Japan Society Performing Arts Program, the Program has brought 1000+ productions of and inspired by Japan to audiences in NYC and beyond through North American tours organized by Japan Society. Programs range from the traditional arts to contemporary theater, dance and music. Since the establishment of the Performing Arts Endowment in 2005, the Society also commissions non-Japanese artists to create Japan-related new works through fostering cross-cultural collaboration that has become part of its important mission.

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