Yokohama Theatre Group - History

History

Originally named the Amateur Dramatic Club, the group held its first official meeting on Thursday, September 6, 1900, and produced its first show (The Schoolmistress by Arthur Wing Pinero) on November 12 of the same year. The word Yokohama was eventually prefixed to name of the group, and from 1916 on was used in most of the group's internal paperwork. In late 1982, the Committee (the Board of Directors) began using the name "The Yokohama Theatre Group" in reference to the group, and at the 1983 Annual General Meeting the new name was officially voted in.

From 1900 to 1923, nearly all the Yokohama-based performances of the group took place in the Public Hall, later renamed the Bluff Gaiety Theatre, a building which was partially owned by the club but was unfortunately destroyed during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Since that time, the group has had no permanent home, and has performed its shows on stages in hotels, local schools and colleges, and, especially since 1981, the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club.

The group's activities picked up again after the earthquake and continued until October 1940 when the production of Where Do We Go From Here? became the last show before the hostilities of World War II made further shows impossible. In December of that year, Nils Kallin, a Swede, was elected as chairman because it was thought that having a national of a neutral country in charge would better safeguard the group's finances until the war's end.

After the end of the Pacific War, it took nearly seven years (until 1952) for shows to start being produced again. The first post-war production was Blithe Spirit.