News
Death Note the Musical Gets New Run in November
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The official X (formerly Twitter) account of Frank Wildhorn's Death Note the Musical announced on Friday its new run in November at the Tokyo Tatemono Brillia Hall to commemorate the musical's 10th anniversary. The staff also revealed the musical's new cast.
The new cast for the musical are (image above from top left to bottom right):
- Kato Seishiro and Ao Watanabe as Light Yagami (double cast)
- Hiroki Miura as L
- Riho Sayashi as Misa Amane
- Riko of Jpop group HUNNY BEE as Sayu Yagami
- Megumi Hamada as Rem
- Kenji Urai as Ryuk
- Kiyotaka Imai as Sōichirō Yagami
Hamada will reprise her role from the musical's first run in 2015. Urai, who played Light Yagami in the first run, returns as Ryuk.
Frank Wildhorn, an American composer known for songs sung by Whitney Houston ("Where Do Broken Hearts Go?") and Natalie Cole, is again scoring the Death Note musical. Tamiya Kuriyama, a recipient of the Japanese government's Medal with Purple Ribbon, is again directing. Jack Murphy (The Civil War, Rudolf, Carmen, Wonderland, The Count of Monte Cristo) is again writing the lyrics, and Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bonnie and Clyde) returns to write the script.
Kayoko Jo is in charge of translation, and Ako Takahashi is handling lyrics translation.
The musical debuted in 2015 and had reruns in Japan in 2017 and in 2020. The musical also held a performance in London in 2023.
In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, teenager Light Yagami finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.
In addition to the 2006 television anime adaptation and tie-in specials, Death Note also received a Japanese live-action film adaptation in 2006, with a sequel titled Death Note: The Last Name, and a spinoff titled L change the WorLd in 2008. A live-action television series adaptation premiered in July 2015, and ended in September 2015. A new film titled Death Note: Light up the NEW world, described as a "forbidden sequel" to the first live-action film, opened in Japan in October 2016. Netflix released a live-action Death Note film by director Adam Wingard in August 2017.
Viz Media released the manga, previous Japanese live-action films, anime, and other tie-in projects in North America, and Crunchyroll streamed the live-action television series. Funimation licensed the Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name, and Death Note Light up the NEW world films and released the films on home video in January 2019.
A new Netflix Death Note live-action adaptation by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer (Stranger Things) was announced in 2022.
Sources: Death Note The Musical's X/Twitter account, Stage Natalie
