About the appointment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre’s new artistic directors
On March 31, 2026, Hideki Noda will step down as artistic director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, and will be replaced by Toshiki Okada (Artistic Director, Performing Arts) and Kazuki Yamada (Artistic Director, Music) on April 1.
Since being appointed as the theater’s first artistic director in 2009, Noda has established it at the heart of Tokyo’s performing arts scene (which comprises theater, music, dance, etc). He has also promoted international exchange, actively collaborating with overseas theaters to bring over many outstanding international productions and introduce numerous Japanese shows to countries abroad. In addition, he has made great contributions to the bustling artistic activity centering on Ikebukuro Nishiguchi, to high-quality creative expression, and to the cultivation of young talent.
When Okada, whose creations have made waves around the world, takes over as artistic director for the performing arts, he will work to raise the theater’s profile as a space for the creation and dissemination of a new kind of culture, and to ensure that it communicates as effectively as theaters abroad. And the appointment of Yamada, one of Japan’s leading conductors, to the new role of artistic director for music will ensure that the best use is made of the theater’s illustrious 1,999-seat concert hall, and that the quality of its musical performances and its communication at home and overseas will improve even further.

A comment from Toshiki Okada on his appointment as artistic director (performing arts)
I am always interrogating the relationships between art and people/society/reality. I want to make this approach the basis for my work as artistic director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. As such, I would like to address the following questions, while exchanging ideas and opinions with the theater’s staff and other collaborators to reach a consensus, proceeding by trial and error. The plan to mix performing arts and music also means that I look forward to collaborating actively with Kazuki Yamada, who will be director for music, on various projects.
The interaction with the audiences who attend performances yields valuable results: sensual enjoyment, encouragement, the experience of seeing things with new eyes, the feeling that one’s voice is being heard, the opportunity to critique society and oneself. The performing arts have this potential. So, what kinds of content (programming) and form (attitude) can the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre adopt in order to maximize this potential — to broaden its range as far as possible?
Tokyo’s position in both the domestic and the international contexts entails possibilities as well as issues. So, if we confront this tension head-on, what can the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre do (and not do) as a public theatre situated in this city?
The joy of experiencing the performing arts, of creating them, of building a space in which this kind of joy can arise: this must in no case be founded on the unwilling sacrifice of another. With this in mind, how can the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre serve as a suitable space for those connected to it: the audiences, the artists involved in productions, the staff — in other words, potentially all people?
Toshiki Okada’s biography

- Toshiki Okada
Toshiki Okada is a playwright, novelist, and the director of the theater company chelfitsch, and is known for the unique relationship between language and the body found in his approach. In 2007, he participated in the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, held in Brussels, with his work Five Days in March. Since this debut of his work overseas, he has continued to present works not only domestically but also internationally, putting on performances in over 90 cities across Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
Since 2016, he has also consistently created and directed works in a repertory program at a renowned public theater in Germany. In 2020, his work The Vacuum Cleaner (Münchner Kammerspiele) and in 2022, Doughnuts (Thalia Theater, Hamburg) were selected as part of the Berliner Theatertreffen’s “10 Remarkable Productions.”
He received the 27th Yomiuri Theater Awards Selection Committee Special Prize for his work, Pratthana – A Portrait of Possession, a stage adaptation of a contemporary Thai novel featuring Thai actors. His work Unfulfilled Ghost and Monster – ZAHA / TSURUGA (KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre), which utilizes the narrative structure of noh, won the 72nd Yomiuri Prize for Literature (Play/Scenario Award) and the 25th Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award. In 2021, he directed the opera Yuzuru (All Japan Opera Co-Production Project).
As a novelist, he published The End of the Moment We Had (Shinchōsha) in 2007, which won the 2nd Kenzaburō Ōe Prize. In 2022, he received the 35th Mishima Yukio Prize and the 64th Kumanichi Literary Award for his novel Broccoli Revolution (Shinchōsha).
Moreover, Okada has been appointed as artistic director of the Tokyo Festival starting in fiscal year 2025.
A comment from Kazuki Yamada on his appointment as artistic director (music)
Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre opened in October 1990, and I appeared on its stage as early as February 1991, when I was a sixth-grader in elementary school. The occasion was an event to showcase the results of acoustic education, and I sang a solo with an orchestra. I’m sure I was the first person of my generation to be on that stage. I can never forget the impact it made on me when I first saw that very long escalator. At that time I was seeing a near-future vision of the city of Tokyo.
Indeed, to me, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre is a place where the near future is transmitted to the public. Today, 34 years after its opening, it is still a building which represents ever-transforming Ikebukuro and Toshima Ward. What can we transmit from here? What I see up ahead is a message transmitted to the world from Ikebukuro. I would like to place a focus on the idea that we will not only import from the world, but will export to the world.
We are in a crossover age. As the light emitted by one culture has the capacity to light up other cultures, the light interwoven by numerous cultures surely appears as a galaxy. It is my hope that Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre will become a center of this light.
Since I am embarking on this journey, I want to do something that has never been done. I hope to make full use of my pioneering, rebellious spirit. I greatly look forward to collaborating with Mr. Toshiki Okada, who will be the theatre’s director of performing arts.
Please continue to follow the activities of the ever-changing Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.
Kazuki Yamada’s biography

- Kazuki Yamada
In 2009, Yamada won the 51st Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors. Soon afterward, he made his European debut conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The same year, he conducted the Orchestre de Paris, standing in for Michel Plasson. Since then, he has rapidly expanded his activities. From 2012 to 2018, he was principal guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and since the 2016-17 season he has served as the artistic and musical director of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2023, he was appointed as chief conductor and artistic advisor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). In Japan, he serves as the music director and chairman of the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo as well as the music director of the Yokohama Sinfonietta, which he founded as a student.
Yamada is also passionate about education, appearing at the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland every year as a guest artist. He is also strongly committed to the CBSO’s outreach programs.
His many honors include the Idemitsu Music Award, the Akeo Watanabe Music Foundation Music Award and the Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award. In 2022, he was bestowed the Order of Cultural Merit (Knight) by the Principality of Monaco.
■Details of the new artistic directors’ inaugural press conference and performances will be posted in due course on the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre’s official website:
Contact
- お問合せ先
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- (Regarding the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre)
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Bureau of Citizens, Culture and Sports — Culture Promotion Division — Planning and Coordination Section
Telephone: 03-5388-3132
- お問合せ先
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- (Regarding the appointment of the artistic directors)
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Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture — Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre
Telephone: 03-5391-2111