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Spirited Away Stage Play Wins Best New Play at WhatsOnStage Awards
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The official X (formerly Twitter) account of the London run of Spirited Away: Live on Stage, the stage play of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away anime film, revealed on Monday that it won the Best New Play award at the 25th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards in London. The stage play was also nominated for Best Supporting Performer, Best Set Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Wig, Hair & Makeup Design.
We're delighted to have won BEST NEW PLAY at the @WhatsOnStage awards 🐉 Thank you to everyone that voted for us💙#WOSawards #SpiritedAwayUK pic.twitter.com/FEzc8eqwDG
— Spirited Away LONDON (@SpiritedLDN) February 10, 2025
The stage play ran in Japan with two different sets of cast members. The play's first run debuted at the Imperial Theatre from February to March 2022, then went on tour to Osaka in April, Fukuoka in May, Sapporo in June, and Nagoya in June and July for a total of 102 performances.
The stage play returned for its second run in Japan in August 2023 and March 2024.
Tony and Olivier Award-winning director and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Honorary Associate Director John Caird (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickleby, Daddy Long Legs) wrote and directed the production.
GKIDS theatrically screened a recorded performance of both versions of the stage play. The version with Hashimoto screened in North America in April 2023, and the version with Kamishiraishi screened in late April and early May in 2023.
Spirited Away was previously the highest-grossing Japanese film worldwide until Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train surpassed the record. Spirited Away remained the only non-English-language title to win the Academy Awards' Best Animated Feature award, which it earned in 2003, until Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's latest film The Boy and the Heron won the award last year.
Sources: Spirited Away London's X/Twitter account, Studio Ghibli Unofficial Fansite
