Amon Miyamoto

Amon Miyamoto, the 43-year-old director of Pacific Overtures, is one of Japan’s most acclaimed theatre directors—and a lifelong American musical fan.

by Leonard Jacobs

FRONT & CENTER: What can audiences expect to experience differently by having Pacific Overtures directed by a Japanese director rather than an American?

AMON MIYAMOTO: So many musicals have been staged [and] translated into the Japanese language. Musical theatre is a big business in Asia. I have enjoyed watching movie musicals and listening to show albums since I was born; therefore, I haven’t really thought about whether I direct shows in a Japanese way or in an American way. What’s important is how much I love Broadway musicals. In my direction, I’d love to show what I have learned from the great musical theatre works: tempo, the way musicals are constructed, comedy sense, great drama, and, most importantly, the messages—told through beautiful music—which go beyond any racial barriers.

What changes, if any, have you made in your work on this piece since first tackling it in 1999 for the New National Theatre in Japan? Are there new elements or insights?

MIYAMOTO: Pacific Overtures is rare in the sense that it changes according to the times. The original production at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1976 commemorated the Bicentennial of the United States. It was created for Americans, and showed how the Japanese—"The Economic Animals"—became a fast-growing economic success. The production I directed in 1999, however, was addressed to the Japanese, whose economic bubble had burst. It tried to ask, "We have followed the USA, but where are we going now? What are we pursuing? What is a Japanese identity and what is an American identity in terms of culture and country?" In 2002, I directed it at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where many of the audience members associated it with 9/11, and saw it as a look back to what America had done to other countries. There is one thing, however, that the musical never fails to address: the progress of human beings and rapid economic growth. It does this at times in an eloquent way, at other times in a sorrowful way. I am interested to see what Roundabout’s production will mean to audiences. Pacific Overtures is always contemporary.

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