February 20, 2026
For immediate release
Contact:
Andrew Wood: 415-399-9554 (o) 415-305-1102 (c) [email protected]
Lucho Ramirez: 415-425-0445 [email protected]
Alyssa Morales: 916-838-4236 [email protected]
San Francisco International Arts Festival Presents West Coast Premiere of Stage Adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s Landmark Novel, KINKAKUJI
Calendar Editors Please Note
Who: Leon Ingulsrud, Major Curda, Chiharu Shiota
What: Yukio Mishima’s KINKAKUJI (2025, West Coast Premiere)
Where: Z Space, 450 Florida St., SF, CA 94110
Dates: Thu-Fri May 7-8 at 7:30pm; Sat May 10 at 2:30pm
Tickets: Early Bird $20, Advance: $25, Door: $30 General Admission
Box Office and Information: https://www.sfiaf.org/sfiaf2026_kinkakuji or 415-399-9554
February 20, 2026 San Francisco. San Francisco International Arts Festival in collaboration with U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network, Theatre of Yugen and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco are proud to present the west coast premiere of KINKAKUJI (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion), a staged adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s tour de force novel. The production, which will be performed three times as part of the 2026 Festival Program, is a feverish stage spectacle originally commissioned by The Japan Society New York and created by a distinctive international team led by Leon Ingulsrud (SITI Company co-founder), rising young Korean-American actor Major Curda, and Berlin-based artist Chiharu Shiota, one of the most celebrated visual artists of her generation.
KINKAKUJI will be presented in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco’s exhibition, Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries, on view at the Asian Art Museum from April 3 to July 20, 2026. Two Home Countries marks this internationally acclaimed artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the Bay Area. A timely meditation on identity, displacement, and what it means to belong, the exhibition brings together immersive installations, sculpture, video, and performance-related works that span Shiota’s career, including sketches and projections from the artist’s stage design for KINKAKUJI.
Mishima’s spiraling psychological drama, based on a true and horrific post-war act of arson in which an alienated young Buddhist monk set fire to the sacred, gold-leaf clad 14th-century Kinkakuji temple, dissects the motivations of disaffected youths yearning to “burn it all down.” In this rare stage production of the novel, Curda stars as the titular monk under Ingulsrud’s direction, while Shiota’s starkly beautiful stage design – brought to California for the first time – offers an unprecedented level of immersion in a Mishima dreamscape.
Director Ingulsrud reflects on the novel and the group’s impetus for creating the staged adaptation of it, “Though not autobiographical, the novel reveals Mishima’s deep sympathy for his protagonist, Mizoguchi, suggesting a rare self-awareness. Mizoguchi becomes a teenage Captain Ahab, drawn into the magnetic pull of beauty when it hardens into something absolute, untouchable and estranged from life. Here, beauty and violence are inseparable; the dream of purity carries the seed of annihilation.
This paradox resonates disturbingly today. In Japan, the United States and beyond, polarized visions of “purity” and “identity” threaten to tip toward both transcendence and destruction. The Golden Pavilion gleams as a symbol of what we long for, but also reflects what we fear.”
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco presents
Two Home Countries by Chiharu Shiota
The west coast premiere performances of KINKAKUJI are presented to complement the Asian Art Museum’s solo museum exhibition of contemporary artist Chiharu Shiota that will be on display at the Museum’s 200 Larkin Street location from April 3 – July 20.
The exhibit commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries centers on a newly commissioned, site-specific installation that explores wartime experiences and memories. Placing the original installation in dialogue with other works from Shiota’s oeuvre, the exhibition creates parallels between the humanitarian tragedy of war and the artist’s personal struggles, including confronting her mortality and her bicultural identity living between two home countries. By drawing connections between collective and personal experience and memory, the exhibition contemplates universal issues such as history, humanity, loss, time, space, the body, and national identity.
Artist Biographies
Leon Ingulsrud (Director) is a director, actor, teacher and writer whose work bridges cultures and continents. Born and raised in Japan as the son of Lutheran missionaries, he began his professional career with the Suzuki Company of Toga and later served as a resident director at Art Tower Mito in Japan. He has directed more than forty productions across the globe—from classical texts to original works and adaptations—guided by a deep commitment to collaborative creation and cultural exchange. Mr. Ingulsrud was a founding member of the New York-based SITI Company and served as one of its artistic directors from 2011 until the company’s closing in 2021. He holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and currently teaches acting and directing at Long Island University. Mr. Ingulsrud is a member of One Year Lease Theater Company (OYL), where in addition to acting and writing he works on the OYL summer International Performance Residency in India, Japan and Greece. With OYL, he has performed in Pieces of the Moon, Kissing The Floor, Oedipus and Arms. His most recent production, Wake, which he co-wrote with Brooke Shilling, premiered in New York in November 2025.
Major Curda (Performer — Mizoguchi) is a multi-disciplinary mixed Asian-American actor/storyteller known for their work on various projects in theatre, film, television and voiceover. Curda has collaborated on various projects in development with New York Stage and Film, New York Theatre Workshop, The O’Neill/NMTC, One Year Lease Theatre Co., Ma-Yi Theatre Co. and Mercury Store. Curda had the privilege of performing in Broadway’s KPOP and playing Romeo in NAATCO’s Romeo and Juliet; and they can be found recurring in multiple seasons of the CW’s Riverdale and Netflix’s Atypical. In addition to other Broadway, Off-Broadway, touring, regional and developmental theater credits, Curda has appeared on multiple Nickelodeon shows, starred in web-series, voiced multiple video game characters and is an award-winning audiobook narrator.
Chiharu Shiota (Stage Designer) is a contemporary artist best known for her site-specific, ephemeral installations in which fragments of memory are woven within webs of yarn that consume entire exhibition spaces. Since 2003, Shiota has also designed stage sets for performances at major theaters, including the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Geneva (2024); Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels (2011); and New National Theatre in Tokyo (2009).
Ethan Phelps (Original Music Composer) is a composer and pianist, currently pursuing a Classical Composition BM at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music. Ethan previously attended Long Island University where he composed music for Ellen McLaughin’s The Oresteia (Fall 2024) and Karel Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots (Spring 2025). Recent performance credits include providing piano accompaniment for a staged reading of Amy Witting’s You’re the Reason I’m Still Here at the Public Theater in New York (Spring 2025).
Padra Crisafulli (Sound Designer) creates theatrical experiences as a sound designer, composer, director and generative artist, and is most energized when mixing the unexplainable with the unavoidable. Past credits include: La Jolla Playhouse, Park Avenue Armory, National Museum of Serbia, Prague Quadrennial and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They were awarded the Triangle Rainbow Theatre and Riant’s Best Director Award for their online work, as well as a Hæth Grant recipient through Possum Creek Games. MFA in Sound, UC San Diego. BFA in Directing, Carnegie Mellon University.
Marie Yokoyama (Original Lighting Designer) is a Japanese lighting designer based in New York. She has designed various productions at Japan Society, including recent shows such as Ryoanji; Cage Shock; OKI: Music of the Ainu; and note to a friend. Her other recent credits include: La Bohème (Arizona Opera); Madama Butterfly (Vancouver Opera); Waitress (ZACH, TX); Twelfth Night (Theatre2, AK); Dangerous Days (Miami New Drama); Cyrano de Bergerac (KC Rep); Conscience (Portland Stage); and Human (Asheville Creative Arts). Upcoming productions include Madama Butterfly (co-production Calgary Opera, Arizona Opera, Grand Rapids Opera); Madama Butterfly (Colorado Opera); Jagged Pills (Redhouse, NY); and Stuck Elevator (Grand Rapids Opera). Yokoyama received a MFA from Yale School of Drama, and is a member of USA829.
Meena Kang (Costume Designer) is a South Korean costume designer and stylist based in New York. They hold a BFA in costume design from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and further studied at the National University of Singapore. Most recent credits include Slanted (directed by Amy Wang) and Machinal (directed by Alexis Confer).
Asami Morita (San Francisco Light Adaption) is a New York-based lighting designer whose works have been seen locally, nationally, and internationally. She grew up backstage and later made her way onstage as a performer. Returning to her back stage roots, she has been on tour as a lighting supervisor with Kota Yamazaki, Yasuko Yokoshi, Kashu-Juku Noh Theater among others before becoming Technical Director at Gibney. Her lighting design includes but not limited to shows by Mike Albo, Mayfield Brooks, Dylan Crossman, Hilary Easton, Jack Ferver, Gina Gibney, Jumatatu M Poe, Jill Sigman, Makiko Tamura, Caleb Teicher, Steeledance, Gwen Welliver and Nami Yamamoto.
Futoshi Mayai (Production & Tour Manager) received a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Osaka Prefecture in 1991 and a Master of Arts degree in arts administration from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1999. Mr. Miyai started his career as an independent stage manager for theater groups in Osaka, Japan in 1989. In 1996, he moved to New York as a Saison Foundation Fellow. Mr. Miyai has worked with Japan Society's Performing Arts Program since in 1998 as a production coordinator for presentations at Japan Society and as tour manager in the United States and Canada.
Huai Huang (Production Stage Manager) is an international stage manager originally from Taiwan, now based in New York City, and has been working in the US, Japan and Taiwan. She received her MFA in stage management from the University of California, San Diego in 2025. Selected credits: Ocean’s 11 (Takarazuka Revue), Phantom (Takarazuka Revue), Elisabeth (Takarazuka Revue), Casanova (Takarazuka Revue), Trophy Boys (MCC Theatre), Velour: A Drag Spectacular (La Jolla Playhouse), Cabaret (The Old Globe), Aphrodite (Taiwan Now), The Devotion of Suspect X (National Theatre of Taiwan).
Producer Biographies
San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF)
SFIAF celebrates the arts by bringing together a global community of artists and audiences. We present innovative projects that focus on increasing awareness and understanding within and across cultures. Our core values are based on principles of cultural and economic equity and coordinating the shared resources of multiple organizations in order to reach mutually beneficial goals.
U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network, Inc. (CTN)
CTN cultivates and promotes creativity, collective wisdom, resilience, sustainability and equity across communities in Japan and the U.S. with an emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area. CTN was founded as an international project of Arts Midwest, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN in 2001 to provide leadership, vision, information and support to enhance cultural trade between the U.S. and Japan. Under the leadership of its founding director, Kyoko Yoshida, CTN has designed and implemented a number of exemplary exchange projects with an array of committed partners and participants, developed long-term relationships and broadened the knowledge within the professional community about artistic resources and practices in both countries. After its successful and productive operation of five years in the Midwest, CTN relocated to San Francisco in 2006 and became an independent nonprofit organization in 2007.
Theatre of Yugen (Yugen)
Yugen is an innovative theatre producer and presenter with a trained ensemble that is rooted in Noh drama and Kyogen comedy, the oldest continuous theatrical traditions of Japan. Founded in 1978 by Yuriko Doi and currently led by co-directors Kyoko Yoshida and Miwa Kaneko, Yugen creates and offers intercultural theatrical experiences that engage and inspire diverse peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area and the world. Yugen serves as a creative engine and a cultural hub based in the Bay Area community, creating and presenting theatrical performances led by the collaborative pursuit of the intangible essence of Yugen, a Japanese sensibility that expresses the profound and elusive nature of being. Through its works, Yugen envisions that people experience interconnectedness with each other and the universe, a timeless antidote to global issues and challenges of our society.
Funding Credits:
The performances of KINKAKUJI in San Francisco are supported in part by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
The original production of KINKAKUJI at the Japan Society New York was supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and New York State Legislature, Japan Foundation New York, and the Goethe-lnstitut with support from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The original production of KINKAKUJI at the Japan Society New York was produced through special arrangement with Concord Theatricals Corporation.
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