CONFESSIONS OF A SHINAGAWA MONKEY
品川猿の告白

BIOGRAPHIES

CREATIVE TEAM:

村上春樹
HARUKI MURIKAMI

Haruki Murakami currently resides in the Tokyo suburbs. In 1979, his debut novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers. His major works include A Wild Sheep Chase (Noma Literary Newcomer’s Prize), Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World (Tanizaki Junichiro Prize), Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Yomiuri Literature Prize), Underground, Sputnik Sweetheart, after the quake, Kafka on the Shore (World Fantasy Award), Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award), and 1Q84 (Mainichi Publishing Culture Prize). His latest book, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, was published in 2024.

His work has been translated into over 50 languages and he was recently awarded the Chino del Duca World Prize.

MATTHEW LENTON
*Conception, Staging and Direction*
Matthew Lenton lives in Glasgow but is fortunate to travel the world with his work, which has been performed across Europe, South America, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan. He most recently directed *Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey* in Yokohama, Japan and *Darwin, Nevada* in Milan, Italy.
As well as being Artistic Director for Vanishing Point, Matthew sometimes works as a freelance director. His recent productions include *1984* (ERT), *Charlie Sonata* (Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), *The Merchant of Venice* (National Theatre of Kosovo).
In 2010 Matthew was the first British director of the Ecole des Maitres, a European director-led theatre laboratory for young actors from across Europe.

SANDY GRIERSON
*Associate Direction*
Sandy is a Vanishing Point Creative Associate. Theatre includes: *Love* (Zeldin Company); *Dr Semmelweis* (Bristol Old Vic) *As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Dido Queen of Carthage, Doctor Faustus, Comedy of Errors, The Tempest* (RSC); *Pity* (Royal Court); *Charlie Sonata* (Lyceum Theatre); *Lanark* (Citizens Theatre), *Anything That Gives Off Light* (T.E.A.M.), *Home* (National Theatre of Scotland), *The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler, Saturday Night, The Beggar’s Opera, Subway, Lost Ones* (Vanishing Point); *Cherry Blossom* (Traverse Theatre), *Monsters* (Arcola), *Oresteia, Witkacy: Idiota, Mr Pinocchio* (Lazzi); *Fergus Lamont* (Communicado); *Dybuk, Little Requiem for Kantor, The Night of the Great Season* (Ariel Teatr).

NOZOMI ABE
*Japanese Translation & Dramaturgy*
Nozomi’s work in both Japanese and English is richly varied. Her translation work into Japanese, all performed in Tokyo, include *Mary Stuart*, *Great Expectations*, *Anna Karenina*, *La Strada* and *The Bodyguard the Musical*. She translates into English too and her works include *Lautrec the Musical*, *Sempo the Musical*, *Tenshu-Tale*, *Forbidden*, *On Air*, *The Sun* and *The Obelisk of the Beast*.
Also, she is one of the judges for the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation (GBSF) Translation Prize.

KEI ISHIHARA
*Scenography*
KEI ISHIHARA has a diverse portfolio of work as a scenic designer from the mainstream theatre plays, musicals, and dance performance to installations, concerts, fashion shows and exhibitions. His flexible and "non-fixation to a certain style/genre" approach to designing has garnered high acclaim. He studied Fine Arts and Illustration/Commercial Arts at New York School of Visual Arts in the USA. Upon graduation in 1998, he worked as a commercial designer where he won New York Art Director's Club Silver Medal (Society of Illustrator Competition 1999). After returning to Japan, he began his career as a scenic designer and won Kisaku Ito Award for the Best Designer in 2011.

SIMON WILKINSON
*Lighting Design*
Simon works internationally as a lighting designer for theatre, dance, and opera.Recent highlights include Punchdrunk’s *Viola’s Room*, the world premiere of Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks (UK & Ireland), *Islander* (US Tour / New York / London), Vanishing Point’s *Metamorphosis* (Scotland / Italy), Vox Motus’s *Flight* (worldwide) and Robert Lepage’s production of *The Magic Flute* (Quebec City).For the National Theatre of Scotland, Simon has lit *The Panopticon, Interference, The 306: Dawn, Dragon, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish & Roman Bridge.* He has designed work for most of Scotland’s leading theatre companies, including *Love the Sinner, A Love Beyond, The Metamorphosis, The Dark Carnival* (Vanishing Point); *Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape, Castle Lennox, Glory on Earth, The Iliad, The Weir, Hedda Gabler, The Caucasian Chalk Circle* and *Bondagers* (Lyceum); *Crocodile Fever, Our Fathers, Meet Me at Dawn, Letters to Morrissey, Grain in the Blood* (Traverse); *I Am Tiger, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Knives in Hens* (Perth Theatre); *Don Quixote, The Children* and *Tay Bridge* (Dundee Rep); *The Stamping Ground* (Raw Material); *A Mother’s Song* (KT Producing); *Muster Station: Leith* (Grid Iron / Edinburgh International Festival)Simon has won the Critics Award For Theatre in Scotland for Best Design three times - for *Flight*, *Black Beauty,* and *Bondagers*. Over the years, his lighting has created a Guinness World Record, brought tens of thousands of people to a windswept Highland Forest and caused reports of an alien invasion.

MARK MELVILLE

Sound Design & Composition

Mark Melville is a composer and sound designer for theatre and film and trained at The Leeds Conservatoire. Theatre includes: Darwin, Nevada (Vanishing Point/Piccolo Theatre/Teatro Bolzano); The Fifth Step (National Theatre of Scotland); Steel (Theatre by the Lake); Midsummer, They Can’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! (Mercury Theatre); Kin (Gecko/National Theatre); The Greatest Play in the History of the World (Tara Finney Productions/West End); Flight (Vox Motus/Edinburgh International Festival/ Barbican); Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein, Wit, Birth (Royal Exchange); Love the Sinner, The Metamorphosis (Vanishing Point); Human Animals, Violence, Son, God Bless the Child (Royal Court); The Snow Queen (Storyhouse); Exodus,The Panopticon, Yer Granny, Knives in Hens, Miracle Man, Empty, My Shrinking Life, Dragon (National Theatre of Scotland); Saturday Night (Vanishing Point/National Theatre of Portugal); Wonderland (Vanishing Point/Edinburgh International Festival/Napoli Teatro Festival Italia); Around the World in 80 Days (Bolton Octagon); Every Brilliant Thing, Guards at the Taj, The Children (Theatre by the Lake); Where Do We Belong, Where Do We Stand? ( Northern Stage); Little Gift, Nest, Pebble on the Beach (M6 Theatre / Andy Manley); Road (Leeds Playhouse); 1984 (Emilia Romagna Teatro, Italy); The Manchester Project (Monkeywood / HOME Manchester); Charlie Sonata (Lyceum, Edinburgh); The Destroyed Room (Vanishing Point / Battersea Arts Centre); Mister Holgado (Unicorn)Mark Melville’s work has been exhibited at the V&A Museum in London, the Prague Quadrennial Theatre Design Festival and the British Design for Theatre Exhibition.He is also a member of the Association of Sound Designers.Nozomi AbeNozomi is a translator, dramaturg, theatre maker and lecturer in Translation and Japanese Studies at Cardiff University. She studied Creative Writing and completed her MSc in Translation Studies at the University of Edinburgh and PhD in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia.