Performing Arts Festival “Autumn Meteorite 2026 Tokyo” Reveals Its Full Lineup

Performing arts festival Autumn Meteorite Tokyo is back

The full program lineup has been announced for Performing Arts Festival: Autumn Meteorite 2026 Tokyo, a festival running from October 9 to November 3, centered on the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro.

First held last year, Autumn Meteorite Tokyo is built around the missions of creating new artistic work, promoting international exchange, and developing the next generation of performing arts professionals. Alongside a diverse range of Japanese and international productions, it also runs professional-development and networking programs. Its Artistic Director is playwright and novelist Toshiki Okada, who this fiscal year 2026 also took up the position of Artistic Director of Performing Arts at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. This edition takes place as part of Tokyo Festival 2026, held at venues across the city from September 1 to November 3.

The full program was announced at a July 22 press conference, staged as a discussion among participating artists, with moderation by Okada and moments in which the artists posed questions to one another. Expressing strong confidence in this year's lineup, Okada spoke about the thinking behind the word "meteorite": in everyday life, there is much we never come across or stop to think about, and a meteorite stands for something from outside our own world that arrives and meets us. Okada sees real value in these chance encounters and in how they can change us — a kind of encounter he wants for himself and believes many others would value too, and the idea he has built the festival around.

As in its first edition, Performing Arts Festival: Autumn Meteorite 2026 Tokyo is organized into three pillars: a "Performance Program" of Japanese and international work, a "Non-Performance Program" of workshops, symposiums, and other events, and a "Hello and Welcome (Attendee Support)" system supporting both. The festival comprises 13 performance productions, four non-performance projects, and two attendee-support initiatives.