‘Spirited Away’ Stage Play Brings Studio Ghibli’s Classic to Theaters
The 2022 live-action stage production of Spirited Away is coming to movie theaters in North America this spring!
This week GKIDS announced that they had licensed the filmed performances of Spirited Away: Live On Stage and would be screening them in theaters throughout North America this spring. The show ran in Japan from February to July of 2022 with two full casts.
Spirited Away: Live On Stage
A few years ago the critically acclaimed and universally beloved 2001 Studio Ghibli film, Spirited Away branched out, taking its beautiful story and visuals to a live-action medium. While the initial announcement of a ‘live-action adaptation of Spirited Away‘ had us all a little jealous, the reality actually looked really cool. This was a stage play adaptation and it looked gorgeous.
Unfortunately, as is the nature of live theater, if you don’t live in a city where the show will be playing or can’t get tickets, it can be nigh impossible to watch. This has been an issue with live theater for years, leaving many of us to wish for more accessible releases of shows. After all, Hamilton and Shrek‘s Broadway experiences made it onto streaming services, why can’t everything?
Last year our streaming questions were answered when Spirited Away: Live On Stage made its way onto Hulu in a special 2-time streaming event. Unfortunately for many of us, this was more designed for a Japanese audience. So while I’m always in favor of showing stage plays in formats that are more accessible than physically going to a theater, I’m sad to say, many of us – myself included – weren’t able to watch on Hulu last year.
Spirited Away: Recorded in Movie Theaters
Luckily, GKIDS will be bringing Spirited Away to a couple more of us this spring when they release the show in movie theaters across North America. I’m elated.
Live Action Spirited Away is being directed by Tony and Olivier Award Winning director John Ciard. His impressive resume includes the Royal Shakespeare Company, Les Mis, and years of work with various Japanese stage productions.
And since the original production utilized a double cast” system, switching up the actors from performance to performance, both casts recordings will be available.
The casts are as follows:
Chihiro: Kanna Hashimoto & Mone Kamishiraishi
Haku: Kotaro Daigo & Hiroki Miura
No Face: Koharu Sugawara & Tomohiko Tsujimoto
Lin/Chihiro’s Mother: Miyu Sakihi & Fu Hinami
Kamaji: Tomorowo Taguchi & Satoshi Hashimoto
Yubaba/Zenibaba: Mari Natsuki & Romi Park
At this time we don’t have hard release dates or a list of participating theaters. But we will be keeping our eyes and ears open for more details. And if this does well, there was a very cool-looking Princess Mononoke stage play produced in 2013 by Whole Hog Theatre that I’d absolutely love to see next.
Will you be watching Spirited Away in theaters this spring? Would you like to see more stage plays become more readily available in general? What other Ghibli films do you think would be great on stage? Let us know in the comments!
Ja Ne, Adventurers!
