The Spir­it­ed Away stage play is com­ing to Amer­i­can cinemas

Fans of Hayao Miyaza­ki have had a lot to appre­ci­ate as of late, between the open­ing of the Stu­dio Ghi­b­li theme park last Novem­ber and the news of the upcom­ing fea­ture How Do You Live? due lat­er this year. On top of this, audi­ences in Japan were treat­ed to the very first stage adap­ta­tion of a Ghi­b­li film with the Impe­r­i­al Theatre’s 2022 pro­duc­tion of Spir­it­ed Away — and it’s soon to meet with a wider audience.

Ani­ma­tion dis­trib­u­tor GKIDS announced today that they’ve secured North Amer­i­can rights to screen a filmed record­ing of the Spir­it­ed Away show in cin­e­mas, com­plet­ing the movie-to-play-to-movie life cycle. The live-action rework­ing of young Chihiro’s adven­ture through the spir­it-world to save her par­ents after they’re turned into pigs will start mak­ing the rounds this spring, though it’s not yet clear whether that run will be in coop­er­a­tion with GKIDS’ polar­iz­ing past part­ner Fath­om Events.

Direct­ed by John Caird (a Tony-win­ning stage vet­er­an most notable for orig­i­nat­ing the Lon­don pro­duc­tion of Les Mis­er­ables), the production’s cast includes the film’s orig­i­nal voice actor Mari Nat­su­ki repris­ing her roles as witch sis­ters Yuba­ba and Zeni­ba. Though the real star of the show may be the numer­ous prac­ti­cal effects repli­cat­ing the wild crea­tures pop­u­lat­ing the after­life spa where Chi­hi­ro works, pup­petry and ani­ma­tron­ics employed to bring the port­ly radish spir­it, the haunt­ing No-Face, and the tem­pes­tu­ous riv­er spir­it to life.

Eng­lish-lan­guage reviews of the run in Tokyo are sparse, but the adu­la­tions from the Japan­ese press and the boom­ing tick­et sales both tell the sto­ry of a block­bust­ing suc­cess like­ly to tour the globe even as the filmed ver­sion expands its reach. In Lon­don over the past few months, a like-mind­ed treat­ment of My Neigh­bor Totoro was a smash at the Bar­bi­can Cen­tre, and could very well be up for the same stage-to-screen treat­ment if the Spir­it­ed Away show­times have healthy returns.

As the Ghi­b­li brand con­tin­ues to diver­si­fy, it might not be long before Princess Mononoke or Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle make the jump to the stage, Miyazaki’s imag­i­na­tion just as vivid with­out the hand-drawn art­work artic­u­lat­ing it. He’s been instru­men­tal in teach­ing gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren to appre­ci­ate the craft of ani­ma­tion; maybe he can do the same for the theatre.