Kazuyoshi Kushida (born 1942) is an actor, director and artistic manager of the Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre. After studying acting at Haiyu-za, in 1965, he decided to join the theatre company Bungaku za. A year later, together with Makoto Sato, Ren Saito and Hideko Yoshida, he created the Jiyu Gekijo Company and started producing traditional theatre shows, the most popular being Maboroshi no Suizokukan (1976), Motto Naite-yo Flapper (1977), Shanghai Rhapsody (1979) and Cusco (1982). In 1985, he began working for the opening of the Bunkamura Theater Cocoon, being extremely involved in the project, from the architectural design to the artistic strategy. At the opening of the theatre in 1989, he signed a franchise agreement with On-Theater Jiyu Gekijo, which he continued to manage, and introduced a repertory system. From that moment, he started working intensively for Theatre Cocoon and created a schedule for the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be staged every year by a new director. Later on, he introduced the Cocoon Kabuki series, in collaboration with the famous actor Kanzaburo Nakamura XVIII. Since 2000, he has been a professor at the Performing Arts Department of Nihon University and since 2003, he had been the artistic and administrative manager of Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre. In 2007, he won the Outstanding Director Award of the Yomiuri Drama Grand Prix for the performance Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan–Kita, the seventh production of the Cocoon Kabuki series. In 2008, he received the Medal of Honour (Purple Ribbon) from the Japanese Government for outstanding artistic and academic performances.
Constantin Chiriac:
''A personality who has profoundly transformed Japanese performing arts, the most complex artist in Japan, most open to novelty and dialogue, Kazuyoshi Kushida is awarded a star on the Sibiu Walk of Fame for his inventive art and his vocation for dialogue and worldwide partnerships.''
Star offered with the support of: JTI
