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Hitomi performing as Anne

J-Pop singer, Hitomi Shimatani has successfully attracted the attention of Japan, this time with her acting skills in the musical “Anne of Green Gables“. The plot of this musical is based on the infamous book written by the Canadian author, Lucy Montgomery in 1908.

With the lead role, Hitomi has aimed towards impersonating Anne. Throughout August, Hitomi and the rest of the cast, will perform at different venues in Japan. It is scheduled that the musical will be performed in eight cities and amount to eleven performances. The tour initiated in the Sapporo Educational Cultural Centre on the 18th August.

The announcement of the lead part was done in February, when Hitomi had sang the national anthem at the Olympic Soccer Dome in Tokyo. She would announce that the company S.T. Chemical CO. LTD. has appointed Hitomi to be the lead performer in the 20,000 people’s beat TOURS musical “Anne of Green Gables”. In April, a press conference would be issued to announce the musical. Hitomi would be present, wearing a straw hat, which symbolizes Anne. During the interview Hitomi would enthusiastically comment on her task to transform into Anne.

“Anne is truly an attractive person, and although I am only taking the role of Anne, I want to do my best on stage. I want to produce the characteristic with strength. From the rehearsal tension, I want to retain the relations with my co-workers high and keep working chummily with everyone”

The musical was first performed in 1998, the sponsors of the original musical, S.T. Chemical have decided to revive this musical to celebrate its 10th year. Thus this musical was received with a lot of excitement by the company. The official site was updated frequently on the progression of the development within the musical.

Hitomi has spoken about her transformation to Anne on various occasions, most particularly in her press conference in Tokyo. She has taken a lot of vocal training sessions to perform on stage with confidence. Furthermore she would meet the music director Yamaguchi Yuta, who also happed to be her teacher before her debut. Hitomi would also be stimulated to notice that she has several commonalities and imagination with Anne Shirley. Hitomi has gotten used to red hair completely however she was embarrassed to wear freckles, which seemed to grow bigger with each performance.

“Although I felt tense in each performance, Anne Shirley has truly colored rapidly within me.”

This isn’t the first time that Hitomi has performed in a musical. In 2004, Hitomi would co-star with Yukie Nakama and Eriko Imai in “Star Tanjoubi“. Hitomi’s performance was also well received on that time and managed to attract the attention of the media. Hopefully this will mean that we shall be having even more acting experiences from Hitomi Shimatani.

Source:

• Oricon
• Hochi Shinbun
• SANSPO
• Nikkan Sports
• Daily Sports

Special thanks go to several members at Crossover who have worked so hard to translate and find articles related to this event.