Biographical sketch of Deguchi Norio

• 1940, born in Shimane Prefecture
• 1963, graduated from Tokyo University
• joined Bungaku-za as a trainee director in the late 1960s, where he directed several Shakespeare plays
• 1972, co-directed Troilus and Cressida with Jeffrey Leavis, and directed Hamlet in Odashima Yushi's translation for the Bungaku-za Company
• July 1972, joined Theatre Company Shiki
• 1975, established the Shakespeare Theatre Company and started producing all of Shakespeare's plays at the JeanJean, a small theatre in the basement of a Shibuya Church. Deguchi's Shakespeare productions became famous as "Shakespeare in Jeans and T-shirts", and enjoyed great popularity among the young
• 1978, received the Kinokuniya Drama Award.
• May 1981, finished staging the complete canon of Shakespeare
• 1990, directed the School Version of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Theatre Cocoon in Shibuya. This was the first production of Deguchi's "MND Project at Theatre Cocoon" (1990-94) in which the play was produced for five consecutive years, with a different director each year
• September 1994, Deguchi staged his three versions of MND consecutively at the Tokyo Panasonic Globe (the subject of this CD-Rom study).