Deborah DeSnoo

Deborah DeSnoo worked as an actress off-off and off-Broadway after her graduation

from New York University in 1978. In 1980, she went to Japan to study Noh, classical

Japanese Drama, and after several years of traveling between the United States and

Japan, she took up residency in Tokyo in 1984. Since then she has appeared in

various TV productions and stage performances, as well as teaching and directing. In

1989, she and Naoki Matsumoto formed a bilingual performing company. She is the

first non-Japanese woman to direct in the Japanese language and the only non-

Japanese to direct on what is the equivalent of Broadway in Japan. She is also the first

non-Japanese (man or woman) to be invited to join the Japanese Directors Union.