To be honest, it wasn’t a surprise.  With half of last year’s participants leaving, new JET arrivals being severely delayed, and of course, Covid-19, it was to be expected. 

I’m still bummed about it, though.  I love musical theater.  I had plans to create a Zazu-like puppet for Towa, who is a yairocho (fairy pitta, Kochi’s prefectural bird) and one of the lead characters.  I had charts and a list of materials and everything.  Winter break was going to be my time to construct it.  Past Genki productions didn’t work with puppetry (as far as I know), so I was excited to dabble in that.  And now there's no show.

But just because the Tosaben Musical is not going to be on a stage doesn't mean it's over.  

Instead of a live performance on a stage with props and lighting, the 2021 Tosaben Musical will instead be a digital script reading with the musical numbers presented in the style of a music video. This is something that can be done by one person or many.  In a time when live theater is struggling, we need to find ways to adapt.  

This idea of a script reading is not an original idea.  I was inspired by Team Starkid and their most recent endeavor, Nightmare Time.  

Starkid is a popular theater group famous for comedic musicals such as A Very Potter Musical and Twisted.  This year, Starkid was supposed to perform Nerdy Prudes Must Die, the third installment of their horror-comedy Hatchetfield musical series.  However, because of Covid-19, the musical was postponed.  

In its place, Starkid presented Nightmare Time, a live script reading of several short stories taking place in their Hatchetfield universe.  Nightmare Time was conducted over the video conferencing platform Zoom.  While most of the stories were straight plays and not musicals, musical numbers accompanied each story in the style of a music video.  It was performed and streamed to a live online audience.  The first of three episodes is available on YouTube.

While Nightmare Time was performed live, the 2021 Tosaben Musical likely won't be.  We will be reaching internationally for our cast.  And if worst comes to worst, a story can be told by one person.

The 2021 Tosaben Musical is still happening, even if it’s in a new format.  Currently, we are assessing the schedule and adjusting the production pipeline.  Genki has never done this before and it’s going to be a lot of work, so I’m pretty nervous.  But I know it’ll be worth it in the end.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support. 

See you in 2021!

Kaili

Director (2018 - present)