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.
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 by Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. She is scheduled to write the English supertitles for Die Fledermaus at Biwako Hall in November 2023.
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
| Title | Author/s | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | James Lapine/Steven Sondheim | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2023 |
| Marie-Gabrielle’s Self Portrait | June Iyeda/Makoto Shinohara | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2023 |
| Falstaff (as Associate Director) | G. Verdi | Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra | 2022 |
| Noye’s Fludde | Benjamin Britten | Spring Festival Tokyo | 2022 |
| Adachigahara | A Noh play | Kanze Noh Theater | 2022 |
| The Spitfire Grill | James Valcq/Fred Alley | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2022 |
| Afterplay | Brian Friel | Actors Works | 2021 |
| Botandoro | A Japanese folktale | Sarti Musicali | 2021 |
| Sweet Charity | Neil Simon/Cy Coleman | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2021 |
| New Year’s Eve Concerts | Hyogo Performing Arts Center | 2018 – 2020 | |
| Hagoromo | A Noh play | Kanze Noh Theater | 2020 |
| The Pajama Game | Richard Adler/Jerry Ross | Senzoku Gakuen College of Music | 2019 |
| The Last Five Years | Jason Robert Brown | P.A.Tokyo | 2019 |
| The Snow Princess | Chikae Takahashi | The New National Theatre Tokyo | 2018 |
| Carmen | George Bizet | Suginami Opera | 2018 |
| The Telephone | Gian Carlo Menotti | Hakuju Hall | 2018 |
| Il mondo della luna | Franz Joseph Haydn | Haydnsaal, Eisenstadt, Austria | 2017 |
| Euridice | Giulio Caccini | Anthonello | 2016 |
Translation Credits
＊= Book and Lyrics / ● = Book / ＃= Lyrics
| Title | Author/s | Organization | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cavalleria Rusiticana/Pagliacci | Mascani/Leoncavallo | Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre | 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |