This book is a memoir of Aran Kei’s time as a member of Takarazuka, as well as her post-Takarazuka career and memories of her childhood. It was published in 2010 to commemorate the 20th year of her stage career. It also features messages from Takarazuka classmates and other colleagues and theatre artists she has worked with.
Some paragraph breaks have been added for ease of reading in English. I have also collected many archival images from various sources to illustrate the book.
Trusting in “the power of entertainment”
It’s a unique space where you can forget the real world for a little while. That’s the place the stage has always been for me. One of the reasons I dreamed of joining Takarazuka was because of the many times theatre had helped me when I was having painful thoughts. It’s good to cry and get an emotional detox, and it’s also good to laugh and change your mood. As an actress, in the future, I want to be able to take part in even one more of those shows, the kind that moves the hearts of those watching, no matter what way, and gives them motivation in their life starting the day after they see it.
The first experience I had with the power of entertainment was when I saw a Four Seasons Theatre production of CATS in Osaka, in my third year of middle school. I begged for tickets since I really wanted to go, so I ended up going together with my mother and other siblings. It was the first musical I went to, and it was so fun! I was excited to see the theatre set up like a big tent, so it felt like we were in another world from the moment we entered, and it was thrilling to see the sets move around, and while I was watching I completely forgot about our troubles at home and everything else.
After getting back from the theatre my siblings and I would pretend-play CATS together, and we played a cassette tape with CATS music on it over and over until it wore out… My parents’ divorce happened right after that, so that is crystallized in my memory as one of the last happy times from our childhood with my mother. Every time I went to see a Four Seasons show, I was fascinated by Ichimura Masachika’s unique presence. I also loved Waking from a Dream to a Dream. It’s about a girl full of curiosity named Piko, who meets a ghost named Mako in an amusement park haunted house, and the voice of the first actress to play Piko, Hosaka Chizu, still stays with me.
When I started aiming to join Takarazuka, my opportunities to watch musicals increased a little, but living in the countryside in Shiga, it was a struggle just to get information about performances. I didn’t have any friends who liked musicals, and there weren’t nearly as many shows coming to Japan as there are now. As an adult, I saw CATS in New York, but it wasn’t as moving as it had been back then, and it made me realize once again what a big effect that performance must have had on me as a middle schooler.
I have been to Broadway twice now, and seen all kinds of shows, from The Phantom of the Opera, CATS, Mary Poppins, and Cabaret, to Chicago, Forever Tango, In the Heights, Next to Normal, as well as Billy Elliot, et cetera. Actually, the first time I went to Broadway, The Lion King had just opened, and I bought a ticket for three times its normal price. It was a really expensive ticket, but I was really moved by the show and left the theatre completely satisfied.
My encounters with A Song for Kingdoms and THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL made me even more aware of how wonderful musicals are. Musicals, to me, are something that opened up my destiny. The stage is a place where I can give dreams to the audience, and somewhere where I can dream myself. Without entertainment people become depressed, and entertainment has the power to save people. I believe this because of how many times I have been saved by theatre.