Project Overview

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an interdisciplinary theatrical production based on the internationally acclaimed novel by one of Japan’s most renowned writers, Haruki Murakami. Inspired by Murakami’s visionary style, writer/director Stephen Earnhart merges live performance, live music, dance/movement and Bunraku puppetry with on-stage projections of video, anime, and holographic technology to create a “theatre of dreams.” This cross-cultural play incorporates both English and Japanese languages and represents an international collaboration between Western and Asian artists and designers.

This project marks the first time Mr. Murakami sanctioned the adaptation of any of his full-length works for any medium. Mr. Earnhart (formerly Director of Production for Miramax Films) began his adaptation in 2005 while living in Tokyo and conferring with Mr. Murakami, continued his script work at the Edward Albee playwright residency in 2006 and has made several subsequent trips to Japan to collaborate with members of Tokyo’s theatre community. In the spring of 2007, he co-wrote a new draft with fellow Albee-resident Gregory Pierce, and began working with Tokyo-based translator Keiko Tsuneda. In the spring of 2008, puppet designer and performer Tom Lee joined the team, an important collaborator whose work can be seen in NYC at the Metropolitan Opera’s stunning production of Anthony Minghella’s Madame Butterfly. Mr. Earnhart spent three months in Tokyo in 2008 as part of a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council and has created four workshops in the last year to further the play’s development.

Creative Team