Our working group, consisting mainly of researchers of western and/ or modern Japanese theatres, started in the year of 1988: just before the beginning of the huge global changes, which decisively influenced upon both the ways in which theatrical works were created and perceived. With this in the background, the working group has been in its developing process inevitably confronting the mission of seeking for new approaches to the contemporary phenomena of world theatres. Constant searches for new methodologies beyond various borders, including national, lingual and cultural ones, are so to say the icon of our researchers' community. However, this does not mean that researchers with a "traditional", say, positivistic, methodology should not be welcomed. Any sincere theatre academician engaging with not solely "traditional" or "classical" Japanese theatre forms can well become an effective member of our working group.
Researcher members may be asked to give a speech about their own themes usually once in three or four years, although this is no duty, for there is another way to be a welcomed member of our group: at least to pay the annual membership fee (now 3000Yen), to visit the meetings frequently and to behave attentively--- even if in the free talking at the light(?) drinking party after the severe and serious sessions.
Otherwise, the members can hold (small) symposia built upon their own initiatives. Contents of such symposia have been: "Around Aristotle's Poetics", "Theatre and Teaching", "Dialogues with Contemporary Japanese Directors" and "Theatre and Memory", to name a few.
The working group has yet another touch of character: reporting about either the general situation or individual productions of domestic or foreign stages can be also a good way to establish one's own presence in the group --- about Rimini Protokoll in Festival Tokyo, about NODA Hideki's new piece or about Bungakuza Company's Atelier in its three 60th. anniversary productions: one from Euripides, one by a British contemporary black- female author and one by a provoking Japanese dramatist who prefers to attack harshly his own society fingering that there should be something to be attacked that way.