Stage name:

Kawarasaki Gonnosuke I

Guild: Yamazakiya

Line number: SHODAI (I)

Existence: 1596 ~ 22nd day of the 7th lunar month of 1690 ^[1]

Connection:

Son (or adopted son ?): Kawarasaki Gonnosuke II

Career:

1596: born in Kyôto. He helped his father, Kawarasaki Gonnosuke (not an official member of this line), who was the manager of a Nô theater.

1648: he went to Edo and opened a Nô theater.

1650s: Gonnosuke had the chance to meet the Kabuki actor Bandô Matakurô I, who convinced him to give up Nô and to become a Kabuki zamoto.

1656: Gonnosuke opened his Kabuki theater. He had the brilliant idea to use paper fan to promote his programs all over town.

9th lunar month of 1668: Gonnosuke and Morita Kan'ya I joined forces to open a new common theater in the district of Kobiki-chô.

1686: Gonnosuke published an important book of comments about Kabuki entitled "Bukyoku Senrin".

1689: end of the Morita-Kawarasaki joint-venture; Gonnosuke retired.

22nd day of the 7th lunar month of 1690 ^[1]: Gonnosuke died in Edo.

Comments:

Kawarasaki Gonnosuke I was the founder of an important line of theater managers and opened the Kawarasakiza in Edo, a theater which became later on the hikae yagura of the Moritaza. He was also occasionally an actor and a playwright: "among several plays he composed, that concerning the revenge of the Soga Brothers was most popular." (Zoë Kincaid in "Kabuki, the Popular Stage of Japan")

[1] The 22nd day of the 7th lunar month of the 3rd year of the Genroku era was the 26th of August 1690 in the western calendar.

Morita Kan'ya I (left) and Kawarasaki Gonnosuke I (right) in the 11th lunar month of 1675

The Kawarasaki Gonnosuke line of actors and theater managers