Green Revival Lab

What can those of us living today do in the face of a changing planet? How can the performing arts practically contribute to our future society? One answer is that we can value resources and use them sustainably. We aim for performances that live on even after the final curtain falls.

Theatre continuously recreates itself, even within the same play, with new combinations of performers, directors and audience reactions. Incredible advancements in theatre technology in recent years have vastly expanded expressive possibilities, such as lighting equipment with a wider range of light bulbs, video projection that can rapidly bring images to life in three dimensions, impressive digital sound design and high-precision fabric-printing techniques. We hope to update our approach to the performing arts by leveraging aspects of these new theatre technologies for sections of the theatre arts that have required great cost and produced significant waste up until now.

As one experiment with this, over the four years of Artistic Director Kamimura's tenure, we are launching a project known as the Green Revival Lab in which the same set design is used each season for performing different works.

The first example of this will be performing Angels in America, which Artistic Director Kamimura directed in 2023, during the 2026/2027 season. Portions of the set designs from works previously performed by the New National Theatre Tokyo, Leopoldstadt and The White Guard, as well as The Master and Margarita to be performed in November 2026, will be reused for this production. We will also be using the same set from this production of Angels in America, and taking on the challenge of often difficult long-form plays as well as performing renowned works with common themes together (double bills).

In addition to this project, we are also making progress toward promoting sustainability across the theatre as a whole, with initiatives such as reusing materials from our December 2025 performances of Three Kingdoms for our April 2027 performances of The Invisible Hand.