Tadashi Suzuki

Tadashi Suzuki (鈴木忠志, born June 20, 1939 in Shimizu, Shizuoka) is a theatre director, writer and philosopher working out of Toga, Toyama, Japan. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival). With director Anne Bogart he co-founded the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in Saratoga Springs, New York. He is the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training. Suzuki was general artistic director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) (1995~2007), an international committee member of the Theatre Olympics, founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (jointly organized by leading theatre artists from Japan, China and Korea) and chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a nationwide network of theatre professionals in Japan.

Suzuki’s works include “On the Dramatic Passions”, “The Trojan Women”, “Dionysus”, “King Lear”, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “Madame de Sade”, etc.

Besides productions with his own company, he has directed several international collaborations, such as The Tale of Lear, co-produced and presented by four leading regional theatres in the US”; King Lear, presented with the Moscow Art Theatre; Oedipus Rex, co-produced by Cultural Olympiad and the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus; and Electra, produced by Ansan Arts Center / Arco Arts Theatre in Korea and the Taganka Theatre in Russia.

He brought his company from Tokyo to the remote mountain village of Toga in 1976. Currently, the Toga Art Park comprises six theaters, rehearsal facilities, offices, lodgings and restaurants, and continues to host a summer and winter season of performances, symposiums, workshops and competitions.

Suzuki has articulated his theories in a number of books. A collection of his writings in English, The Way of Acting, is published by Theatre Communications Group (US). He has taught his system of actor training in schools and theatres throughout the world, including The Juilliard School in New York and the Moscow Art Theatre. The Cambridge University Press published The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi as part of their Directors in Perspective series, featuring leading theatre directors of the 20th Century. This series includes works on Meyerhold, Brecht, Strehler, Peter Brook and Robert Wilson among others.