Mimi Katano 交野みみ
Bicultural/Bilingual Theatre Artist
Producing
Mimi has been in a leadership role at Youth Theatre Northwest since 2003 and has produced over 300 shows for youth actors and audiences. She strives to find material that will be a good training vehicle for students and an interesting artistic challenge for the professional design team. This has included some original commissioned work, collaborations with other organizations, sight-specific pieces, and tours.
japan project
Mimi has worked with Piccolo Theatre of Kobe, Marguerite Theatre of Nagoya, and Joy Kids Theatre of Tokyo in giving workshops for teaching artists, students, and professional actors. She has brought a Kamishibai (traditional Japanese paper theatre) performer to Seattle in 2018 and 2022 and managed his tour and served as a live translator. The number of audience reached from this tours were nearly 2,000. In 2019, she brought 2 teaching artists from Seattle to do a series of workshops. She hopes to grow collaboration opportunities across the Pacific.
Translation &Consulting
Mimi has done cultural consulting for a variety of organizations including: Northwest Asian American Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, and Seattle Children's Museum.
Mimi does Japanese to English written translation work, specializing in dialogue and humor.
Mimi is also adept at live interpretation in
Japanese and English in theatrical settings and non-specialized conversation.