Minamiza Theatre

The Shochiku operated Minamiza Theatre is the oldest continuous operating theater ever in Japan. Dating all the way back to where it originates in the early Edo period between the late-1500’s and early-1600’s and was officially licensed in 1618.

In the early Edo period, there were seven Shogunate-approved playhouses in Shijo-gawara. After that, they were destroyed by fire many times as well as many of its distributions moving to Osaka. Their number gradually decreased, and by the mid-Edo period had three theaters in the area. All of them were called the North, South, and West Theaters. The West Theater though wasn’t rebuilt at all after the massive fire of 1794, and the North Theater closed in 1892 due to the Shijo-dori building being widened, leaving the South Theater only operating in the area.

Shochiku purchased the theater in 1906 and has been directly managed by them ever since. The theater went through major renovation in 1913 becoming a large wooden theater with a capacity of 1,436 seats.

Reconstruction began in January 1929 and was completed in November of that same year, reopening on November 25, 1929 as a five-story steel-framed reinforced concrete structure with a Momoyama-styled design and had an upgraded capacity of 1,527 people. It was both designed and constructed by Shirahase Construction, and the person in charge of the actual design was Tadasu Yasuda, a former head of the Kyoto City Public Works Department.

Renovations were carried out in 1991 and the theater reopened on October 28 of that same year, featuring newly-established equipment while retaining its Momoyama exterior. The theater was then registered as a tangible cultural property of the country in 1996.

A seismic inspection was conducted from 2015 but it was found that the building did not meet the seismic standards set out in the revised Act on Promotion of Earthquake-Resistant Renovation, forcing the theater to close on January 19, 2016 for a time after performances by the Zenshinza Theater Company. Initial reports stated that “construction plans for earthquake-resistance work would be announced after May”, but as of May 2017 despite a construction crane had been installed on the building, the overall details of the renovation work, including earthquake resistance, had not been announced, and it was only announced that “full-scale earthquake-resistance reinforcement work is planned to begin around the summer of 2017”.

Obayashi Corporation was in charge of the design and construction of this construction plan, but since there were no architectural drawings of the building especially in the 1929 remodel, and since the closure was announced, it was necessary to investigate and verify the existing building in detail, so it was necessary to accurately quantify the building’s information using the latest technology such as 3D point cloud data and BIM (Building Information Modeling), and then consider a detailed reinforcement plan.

After the investigation, it was decided to use a construction method that emphasizes the strength of the entire building for earthquake reinforcement, so as a preliminary construction to increase the strength of the building’s framework, construction work began in November 2016 to partially demolish and remove most of the existing interior, walls, and ceilings throughout the building, and to temporarily reduce the entire building to a skeleton, which was completed by the end of April 2017.

The earthquake-resistance reinforcement method involved the installation of more than 200 reinforced concrete earthquake-resistance walls, as well as the introduction of steel braces where appropriate. A plan for the reinforcement of the entire building was drawn up, including the addition of new steel beams to the main roof, the weight reduction of roof tiles, and the strengthening of the reinforced concrete columns. The structural design was certified by a third party in September 2017 and full-scale reinforcement work began. In addition to reinforcing the building’s framework, the interior and facilities that had been demolished and removed were completely renewed, and facility renewal and interior work began in March 2018. On May 18, 2018, it was announced that the theater would reopen in November of that same year despite its fixtures. The “large-scale earthquake-resistance reinforcement renovation work,” which combined earthquake-resistance reinforcement and interior facility renewal, was completed on September 28, 2018, marking the building’s completion.

On October 27, 2018, the Minamiza Opening Ceremony and the Minamiza New Opening Gion Parade were held to commemorate the reopening of the theatre under the Minamiza name with 1,082 seats total, and on November 1 of that same year, the theatre reopened as part of the 400th anniversary of the its origin, commemorating the newly-established opening of the theatre, as well as a variety of Kyoto’s Annual Events, the Year of the Pig, the Traditional Face-to-Face Performance, East and West Joint Grand Kabuki, and the Name Succession Ceremony of Matsumoto Hakuo II, Matsumoto Koshiro 10th, and Ichikawa Somegoro VIII".

The theatre was also home to the origin of the tradition Kabuki dance founded by Izumo no Okuni in the spring of 1603. Even today, it still hosts performances centered around Kabuki, and the annual Kaomise Performance, was held there every year from the end of November to the end of December, and has become a seasonal feature of Kyoto. At this time, its also famous for the plain wooden signs called “maneki” with the actors' names written in the Kanteiryu style lined up above the theater entrance.

Besides Kabuki, a lot of plays and concerts were presented for years as well as its undertake on new endeavors, including in 2007, when the OSK Nippon Revue revived its revue for the first time since 1955.

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