JUNE IYEDAStage Director/Writer/Translator/Acting Coach
Associate Professor, Musical Theatre Course, Senzoku Gakuen College of Music
Biography
June has created innovative and thought-provoking stage works with a particular focus on opera and musical theater. As Associate Professor of the Musical Theater Course at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, the largest musical theater course in Japan, she has also helped young actors and singers to launch successful professional careers.
After working as assistant director to such world-renowned directors as Willy Decker, Richard Jones, Karoline Gruber, and Graham Vick at the New National Theater Tokyo, Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation, Deutche Oper am Rhein (Düsseldorf) and other major theaters, June further trained as director and acting coach through observership at the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, working on the programme’s opera productions as assistant director.
Major directing credits include Euridice (winner of the Yoshio Sagawa Music Award), new year’s eve concerts at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center, Il mondo della luna in Eisenstadt, Austria, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, among many others. She has also translated and directed a number of Broadway musicals, including The Pajama Game, Company, Into the Woods, The Last Five Years, The Spitfire Grill, and Sweet Charity.
As a writer/director, In 2024 she wrote and directed a concert featuring the life and music of Carlo Gesualdo, a remarkable Renaissance composer, produced by Oji Hall. In 2024 she also wrote a reading play about the life and works of French painter Bernard Buffet, which was staged at Bernard Buffet Museum in Mishima. In 2022 she wrote and directed a new musical Marie-Gabrielle’s Self-Portrait together with composer Makoto Shinohara; it is a feminist take on the French Revolution, based on a true story about three female painters in Revolutionary Paris. She has a number of other new works in plan.
June has also written English and Japanese supertitles for operas in major productions in Tokyo and elsewhere, including Lulu, The Golden Pavillion and Der Freischütz by Nikikai Opera Foundation, as well as Carmen and Turandot by Kanagawa Prefectural Hall, and Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Die Fledermaus and La Boheme by All-Japan Opera Co-Production Project.
In 2022, she wrote the English lyrics for the new opera Zen which premiered at the Kanazawa Theatre. The revival of the opera is scheduled in November 2023.
In 2022 June was involved in the revision of Madama Butterfly at the Royal Opera House as a cultural advisor.
Born in Yokohama, Japan, June spent her teenage years in the U.S., where she was actively involved in music programs as instrumentalist and vocalist. She graduated from International Christian University in Tokyo and spent a year at Edinburgh University as an exchange student. She studied voice with Hortense Harrington and Masako Saito, and acting with Nicholas Barter, former director of RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), and Lorna Marshall, a former teacher at RADA.
Directing Credits
Operas
Falstaff by Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (as associate director)
Noye’s Fludde (Britten) by Tokyo Spring Classical Music Festival
Il mondo della luna (Haydn) at Haydnsaal, Eisenstadt, Austria
Euridice (Caccini) by Anthonello, a period chamber ensemble
Cosi fan tutte by Senzoku Gakuen College of Music and Tama University of the Arts
Carmen by Suginami Prefectural Opera
Die Zauberflöte
The Telephone
Concerts
The Life and Works of Carlo Gesualdo at Oji Hall
Sylvester Concerst at Hyogo Performing Arts Center (2018-2020)
Musicals
Songs for a New World (Jason Robert Brown)
Into the Woods (Stephen Sondheim)
Company (Stepehn Sondheim)
Marie-Gabrielle’s Self-Portrait (June Iyeda)
Sweet Charity (Neil Simon/Cy Coleman)
The Pajama Game (Richard Adler/Jerry Ross)
The Spitfire Grill (James Valcq/Fred Alley)
Plays/Noh
Adachigahara at Kanze Noh Theater
Hagoromo at Kanze Noh Theater
Translation Credits
＊= Book and Lyrics / ● = Book / ＃= Lyrics
| Title | Author/s | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Songs for a New World | Jason Robert Brown | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2024 |
| Company | James Lapine/Steven Sondheim. | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2023 |
| The Spitfire Grill＊ | James Valcq/Fred Alley | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2017, 2022 |
| Opera “Zen”# | Toshiyuki Watanabe | Kanazawa Arts Foundation | 2022 |
| Afterplay● | Brian Friel | Actors Works | 2021 |
| Sweet Charity＊ | Neil Simon/Cy Coleman | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2018, 2021 |
| The Pajama Game＊ | Richard Adler/Jerry Ross | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2019 |
| The Last Five Years # | Jason Robert Brown | P.A.Tokyo | 2019 |
| By Jeeves＊ | Alan Ayckbourn/Andrew Lloyd-Webber | HoriPro | 2014 |
| Promises, Promises # | Neil Simon/Burt Bacharach | The New National Theatre Tokyo | 2012 |
| Songs for a New World # | Jason Robert Brown | Toho | 2012 |
| Godot Has Come ● (into English) | Minoru Betsuyaku | New York Theater Workshop | 2010 |
English/Japanese Opera Supertitles Credits
| Title | Author | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Boheme | Puccini | All Japan Opera Co-Production Project | 2024 |
| Die Fledermaus | J. Strauss | All Japan Opera Co-Production Project | 2023 |
| Cavalleria Rusiticana/Pagliacci | Mascani/Leoncavallo | All Japan Opera Co-Production Project | 2023 |
| Zen | Toshiyuki Watanabe | Kanazawa Arts Foundation | 2022 |
| Lulu | Alban Berg | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2021 |
| Turandot | Giacomo Puccini | Kanagawa Arts Foundation | 2020 |
| Carmen | George Bizet | Kanagawa Arts Foundation | 2019 |
| Madama Butterfly | Giacomo Puccini | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2019 |
| Kinkakuji | Toshiro Mayuzumi | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2019 |
| Der Freischutz | Carl Maria von Weber | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2018 |
Book Writing Credits
| Title | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|
| The Life and Works of Bernard Buffet | Bernard Buffet Museum | 2024 |
| The Life and Works of Carlo Gesualdo | Oji Hall | 2024 |
| Marie-Gabrielle’s Self Portrait | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2023 |
| Le nozze del barbiere di Siviglia （The Marriage of the Barber of Seville） |
Tetsu Taoshita Theatre Company | 2016 |
Concert scripts for classical concerts 2015 – 2022
Assistant Directing Credits
| Title | Director | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salome | Willy Decker | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2019 |
| Der Rosenkavalier | Richard Jones | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2017 |
| Carmen | David Kneuss | Seiji Ozawa Opera Project | 2017 |
| Tristan und Isolde | Willy Decker | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2016 |
| La scala di seta | Greg Eldridge | The Royal Opera House | 2014 |
| Nabucco | Graham Vick | The New National Theatre Tokyo | 2013 |
| Die Walkure | Joel Lauwers | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2012 |
| Parsifal | Claus Guth | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2012 |
| Don Giovanni | Karoline Gruber | Tokyo Nikikai Foundation | 2011 |
| Andrea Chenier | Philip Arlau | The New National Theatre Tokyo | 2010 |