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Cast for Upcoming London Stage Run of My Neighbor Totoro Confirmed
posted on by Andrew Osmond
Mei Mac will return as Mei Kusakabe, and Ami Okumura Jones will return as her older sister Satsuki. Also returning from the previous Barbican run are Dai Tabuchi as the girls' father Tatsuo and Jacqueline Tate as Granny. The Kazego Puppetry ensemble will also return, including Boaz Chad, Jasmine Chiu, Andrew Futaishi (Hiroshi), Matthew Leonhart, Arina Ii (Miss Hara), Yojiro Ichikawa, Si Rawlinson, Mark Takeshi Ota and Shaofan Wilson.
New cast members for the upcoming run include Jessie Baek, Jasmine Bayes, Ka Long Kelvin Chan (Kanta), Elizabeth Chu, Anna Kato, Heather Lai, Amanda Maud (Nurse Emiko), Yuki Nitta, Bright Ong, Emily Piggford (Yasuko), Daniel Phung, Gun Suen and Naomi Yang (Tsukiko)
Tickets for the play are available here. As of writing, nearly all performances up to the end of December are sold out;
My Neighbor Totoro originally premiered on October 8, 2022 and had a 15-week run to January 21, 2023.
Deadline previously reported that there will be new puppets in the returning show, with director Phelim McDermott saying they will be made stronger so they last longer. He describes the puppets in the original production as the prototypes.
He also says that he would love the show to come to New York.
Previously, My Neighbor Totoro had a 15-week run from its premiere on October 8, 2022 to January 21, 2023. More than 130,000 people saw the play during this run. It was presented by the RSC and Hayao Miyazaki's longtime composer Joe Hisaishi, who created the music for the original film and serves as the play's executive producer. Tom Morton-Smith (Oppenheimer) adapted the story, and Phelim McDermott (Akhnaten) directed the production. The play was made in collaboration with the English theatre company Improbable and Japan's Nippon TV.
The RSC described the production on its website:
"This enchanting coming-of-age story explores the magical fantasy world of childhood and the transformative power of imagination, as it follows one extraordinary summer in the lives of sisters Satsuki and Mei."My Neighbor Totoro will play a strictly limited 15-week season from 8 October 2022 - 21 January 2023 and promises to delight all generations.
The original anime film My Neighbor Totoro is the story of two young sisters, Mei and Satsuki, who move to the countryside and encounter Totoro, wonderful creatures which only children can see.
