TOP MANIA! was a 2017 Kageki feature where Top Stars and Top Musumeyaku talked about their work routine during performances. Asumi’s was published in the August issue.

TOP MANIA – Asumi Rio

Before the performance

Pre-show schedule:
Arrive at the green room 2.5 hours before curtain
1) Tidy up my dressing table
2) Do my stage makeup
3) Stretches and vocal exercises
4) Breakfast
Final preparations

I arrive at the green room 2.5 hours before the performance begins. Right after that I change into a tracksuit and tidy up my dressing table, and start doing my stage makeup. After I do my warmups, I eat breakfast, set my hair, and finally put foundation on my hands and put on my lipstick…done! I can go on stage now! (laughs)

1) I start out with tidying up my dressing table, sharpening my eyebrow pencils, that kind of thing.  After the performance, I’ll always be talking to everyone about how that day’s shows went, so before I know it it’ll be time to leave the dressing room…so most of the time I’ll have to leave it in a mess when I go home (laughs).

2) Formerly, I used to take ages at it, so Miya [Rurika]-chan would keep telling me ‘you’ve been doing your makeup forever’ (laughs), now that I have been given this position, the amount of things I have to do has gone up, so I’ve become way faster at it. But in the end it still takes me a long time to do the foundation of the stage makeup. My goal is to make it look as if I have masculine angles to my face, but still with a sense of translucence.

3) My stretch routine is sort of like yoga, and it’s meant to make it easier for me to breathe. My vocal exercises are done with the idea that I’ll be my own doctor, so I do it carefully while listening to how my voice sounds that day. It’s something I put together when I was ken-9 by mixing up a lot of vocal exercise methods I had learned from various teachers, and I still use it now.

4) At home I just eat some yogurt and then leave. But just that won’t give me enough energy to get through the day, so I’ll eat white rice and miso soup sprinkled with a seven-spice blend from the Violet Kitchen. No matter what the show, I always have that! It really warms me up and it makes me feel like I’ve ‘switched on’.

Something that you have to have on your dressing table
I always put 4 little ducks, like you put in the bathtub, on my dressing table. During my pre-debut performance, when everyone from the class below mine decorated my dressing table, they put them there, and now no matter what the performance I always bring them along. When I get there in the morning, somebody will always have arranged them so they’re all in a row, or facing each other like they’re all friends, and so on, so it’s really calming.

During the Show

Something you have to have during a show
Eye drops.During a show I’ll be trying to make my eyes sparkle, but using them that way ends up drying them out quite a bit, and if I start crying it’ll wash my contact lenses out, so eye drops are a must-have!! Also, spare contact lenses (laughs).

The beverage you drink during a show
Water! Volvic water! I feel like flavored things will leave a taste in my mouth, so I always drink water!

What you focus on during quick changes
Since I have total faith in the costume staff, I always have a really calm and relaxed feeling…the only thing I due is hold my arms out. Sometimes I’ll be too relaxed and by the time they’re doing up my buttons my eyes will be closed (laughs). Of course, sometimes there will be a day where it’s like ‘these laces just won’t fasten!’, but I always try not to get flustered, so I’ll laugh it off with them and say “sometimes there are days like this, hahaha.”

Your favorite moments onstage
During a play, when I can feel my character’s emotions welling up within me. During a revue, the parade. When I come down wearing the feathers, I can see the faces of everyone else in the troupe welcoming me…I like that moment a lot. But there’s also the prologue, when the audience is applauding, or when people cheer…there’s too many to say (laughs).

How far can you see into the audience?
When the spotlight is on me I can’t see much at all, but at other times I can see even the second-floor seats. I’ll think things like “Oh, maybe that’s a student group.” When I go out on the silver bridge, I can see faces clearly up to around halfway back on the first floor.

After the performance

The first thing you do after a show
If I sit back down at my dressing table I won’t budge from there, so I go straight to the office and check on the recordings of portions of the show I had been concerned about. And then I’ll chat with the other members of the cast.

Does the role you’re playing have any effect on your daily life?
I think it probably affects me a lot. When I was playing Bill in ME AND MY GIRL I would try to get people to spoil me, and when I play twisted characters it brings out my dark side… It changes what I decide to wear and the expressions I make. When I look at old photoshoots, I’ll think ‘I was making that face because I was playing such-and-such a role.’

Bonus round

Moments that make you really feel like an otokoyaku
When you’ve been doing it for around 15 years, I think most people feel like being an otokoyaku is normal and don’t really notice it… But I think maybe it’s because I’m an otokoyaku that I feel ‘I have to protect them’ about the musumeyaku, and wanting to be ‘Ladies First’, and feeling like they’re so cute… Also, when people say that my voice is really low, or…oh!! When I always have to shift the songs down 3 keys at karaoke! (laughs) Recently most of the singers have higher voices, so even for songs by male singers I usually shift down 2 or 3 keys.