Kuro Tanino | Playwright, director, actor

Born in 1976 in Toyama prefecture. Besides his activities as playwright, director and leader of Niwa Gekidan Penino, he is working as a psychiatrist in his ‘ordinary life’. In 2000, when he was a student at the faculty of medicine of Showa University, he joined the theatre department of that same university and founded the Niwa Gekidan Penino. Tanino, who is a hobby sculptor and painter, is strongly attached to every detail of the stage design, a fact that is relating to his directing style as well as his personal delusions and simple fantasy. For his play “Egao no toride” (2007), in which children, participating in an educational program, played a pseudo family and for “Hoshikage Jr.” (2008), which had the form of a play within a play he was nominated for the Kunio Kishida Drama Award two years in a row. Recently he is also collaborating with other groups apart from his own as a director and currently working in various fields. Among his outstanding plays are “Dark Master”, (premiere: 2003, replay 2006) “Underground” (2006), and “Egao no toride” (2007). His recent works as a director include “The wild duck” (2007) and “Little Eyolf” (2008) based on the plays by Henrik Ibsen