07/08 main season

based on “honey pie” and “superfrog saves tokyo”
from the novel after the quake by haruki murakami
adapted for the stage and directed by frank galati
steppenwolf theatre company’s production
in association with la jolla playhouse
thrust stage
october 12–december 2, 2007

running time: 90 minutes, no intermission

the art

Director Frank Galati won two Tony Awards for The Grapes of Wrath. Writer Haruki Murakami, author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore, earned Japan’s equivalent of the Pulitzer. Now the two talents collide in after the quake, a simple, gentle tale of life in the wake of earth-shaking disaster. A timid man woos an old flame, enchanting her anxious daughter with whimsical bedtime stories of a six foot frog’s fight to save Tokyo. In this poignant new play, we see that a storyteller can’t dispel the world’s woes, but he can teach a child—and himself—how to face fear.

the artists

Frank Galati is renowned for transforming literary works into transcendent theatre. He won two Tony Awards—as adapter and director—for The Grapes of Wrath. He also directed the Broadway hit Ragtime, which turned E.L. Doctorow’s novel into a magical musical, and netted an Oscar nomination for his screenplay to Anne Tyler’s Accidental Tourist. This spring, he brings The Pirate Queen to Broadway.

Haruki Murakami became Japan’s most celebrated contemporary author after an epiphany at a baseball game convinced him he could write novels. His 13 award-winning books include Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The two stories presented on our stage appeared in The New Yorker and GQ.