Amon Miyamoto


Amon Miyamoto is a theater director. He has directed numerous productions in Japan and worldwide, including musicals, straight plays, opera, kabuki, and other art genres. In 2004, he became the first Japanese director to direct a musical on Broadway when he directed the revival of Pacific Overtures. That production received four Tony Award nominations.
Miyamoto made his directing debut with his original musical I Got Merman, winning the National Performing Arts Festival Award. He is a recipient of the Matsuyo Akimoto Award of the Asahi Performing Arts Awards. He served as the inaugural artistic director of Kanagawa Arts Theater from 2010 to 2014.
Amon made his North American opera-directing debut in 2007 with the US premiere of Tan Dun's Tea: A Mirror of Soul at the Santa Fe Opera. His recent works in New York include The Temple of the Golden Pavilion at Lincoln Center Festival. His European opera credits include: The Magic Flute, Le Pavillon d’Or, Parsifal, and Madame Butterfly which is also planned for the San Francisco Opera in 2023 and the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen in 2024. He directed the pre-Broadway world premiere of The Karate Kid: The Musical on May 25, 2022, in St. Louis.

Biography

Career highlights

  • 1987: Made a debut as a director with the original musical I GOT MERMAN, and received the Agency for Cultural Affairs' National Arts Festival Award the next year
  • 1998: Made a film directing debut with BEAT which was officially invited to the Venice International Film Festival
  • 2001: Directed I GOT MERMAN at The Rich Forum Theatre, Stamford, CT, USA
  • 2004: Directed and choreographed a revival production of Pacific Overtures on Broadway, and became the first Asian director on Broadway
  • 2004: Directed Into The Woods in Tokyo, Japan, for which he received the Matsuyo Akimoto Award of the Asahi Performing Arts Awards
  • 2005: Pacific Overtures was nominated under four categories for the Tony Awards
  • 2007: Directed the U.S. premiere of TEA: A Mirror of Soul at The Santa Fe Opera, NM, USA
  • 2008: Directed the world premiere of the original musical Up In The Air at The Kennedy Center, WA, USA
  • 2010: Inaugurated as the first artistic director of the Kanagawa Arts Theatre
  • 2010: Directed the West End production of The Fantasticks, London, UK
  • 2011: Directed The Temple of The Golden Pavilion, a play based on a novel of the same title by Yukio Mishima, adapted by Serge Lamothe, as the inaugural production of the Kanagawa Arts Theatre
  • 2011: The Temple of The Golden Pavilion was invited to Lincoln Center Festival in NY, USA
  • 2013: Directed the Canadian premiere of TEA: A Mirror of Soul at the Vancouver Opera, Canada
  • 2013: Directed Mozart's opera “DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE” at The Landestheater Linz, Austria
  • 2016: Directed the off-Broadway production of DRUM TAO's DRUM HEART in New York, NY, USA
  • 2016: Directed the special cultural program The Land of the Rising Sun at the , an official kickoff event toward Tokyo 2020 Olympics & Paralympics games and more.
  • 2016: Directed YUGEN: The Hidden Beauty of Japan, the world's first 3D live theater featuring the Japanese Noh theater in Singapore.
  • 2017: Directed a reading performance of Fanatic Artist Hokusai, an original play about the later life of Hokusai, at the British Museum's Great Court.
  • 2018: Directed the opera “The Temple of The Golden Pavilion“, based on the novel by Yukio Mishima, at Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg and Mulhouse, France.
  • 2018: Directed YUGEN: The Hidden Beauty of Japan at the Royal Opera of Versailles. The special one night performance was attended by President Emmanuel Macron of France and Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan.

    Early life and education

Miyamoto was born to parents who ran a café named “Sugawa” across from the Shinbashi Enbujō, one of the most prominent kabuki theaters in Tokyo. As a child, he paid frequent visits to the Shimbashi Enbujō as well as movie theaters, Kabuki-za, and other theaters under the influence of his mother who was a former dancer of the Shochiku Revue Company. In kindergarten, he began to study at Fujima School of Japanese Dance where Nakamura Kanzaburō XVIII was one of his peers. Around that time, he became absorbed in Hollywood films and began to learn about musicals. When he was in elementary school, he began practicing Tea ceremony. He was brought up right in the middle of Hanamachi, a Japanese courtesan and geisha district.
While in high school, he was cast as the leading role in the school's theater club production of Godspell in which he made his acting debut. This musical received positive reviews and was featured in the Kinema Shunpo magazine. He proceeded to attend Tamagawa University, where he majored in Theater in the College of Arts. In the middle of his senior year, he was cast as a dancer in the musical Pippin.

Early career

He debuted as a dancer in 1980. He performed in musicals such as Hair, Annie Get Your Gun, and Chicago, and devoted his time to dance and choreography. He visited New York repeatedly, and studied in London for two years beginning in 1985.
He made his directing debut with his original musical I Got Merman in 1987. The following year, he received the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Performing Arts Festival Award.

International career highlights

; Film “BEAT”
; Musical “Pacific Overtures”
; Musical “I Got Merman”
; Contemporary Opera “TEA: A Mirror of Soul”
; Musical “Up in the Air”
; Musical “The Fantasticks”
; Play “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion”
; Opera “DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE”
; Japanese Noh Theatre x 3D Live Theatre “YUGEN The Hidden Beauty of Japan”
; Opera “The Temple of The Golden Pavilion”
; Japanese Noh Theatre x 3D Live Theatre “YUGEN The Hidden Beauty of Japan”

Selected works

Opera / Operetta

Straight Play

Musical

Kabuki

Noh

Non Verbal Performance

Special Event

Reading

Revue

Dance

Film

Drama

  • Boogie Woogie, Kaoru Hujimura

    Straight Play (as a performer)