It has been revealed that actor Kenji Urai, former Takarazuka Revue top musumeyaku (leading female role) Madoka Hoshikaze, and actress and talent Yume Takeuchi will appear as performance guests on WOWOW's live broadcast of the 79th Tony Awards ceremony, a major event in the American theater world, to be held in New York on June 8th. The three will be co-starring in the musical "Ghost," which will be performed at Theatre Crea (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) from August 8th, and will perform songs from the show from the live broadcast studio.
"Ghost" is a musical based on the 1990 film "Ghost," with the script and lyrics written by Bruce Joel Rubin, who won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film version, and music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Glenn Ballard. It premiered in Japan in 2018 as an original Japanese production and was revived in 2021. This will be its first performance in five years.
Urai will once again play the lead role of Sam, following his roles in the original and revival productions. The role of Sam's girlfriend, Molly, will be played by two actresses: Hoshikaze, who has been active in numerous stage productions since leaving Takarazuka, and Takeuchi, who is well-known from NHK E-TV's "Otousan to Issho" (Together with Dad).
WOWOW's "Live Broadcast! The 79th Tony Awards Ceremony" (with simultaneous interpretation) will be broadcast live and streamed on WOWOW Prime and WOWOW On Demand from 8:00 AM on June 8th. Musical actor Yoshio Inoue and actress Emma Miyazawa will serve as navigators, and Taiga Kyomoto of the popular group SixTONES will be the special supporter.
The program will also feature Kazutaka Ueda, a director who has worked on numerous musical productions, as a guest, and he will be in charge of directing Inoue's opening performance. Yuusei Kageyama, a theater journalist well-versed in Broadway, and Yasuhiko Katsuta, a director and professor at Osaka University of Arts, will also appear to give a detailed overview of the highlights of this year's Tony Awards.
