Akitora Ishii

Akitora Ishii
(Slim)

Producer, Of Mice and Men

Akitora is a second generation half-Japanese actor, creator, and stage technician based in Portland, Oregon. He earned his Bachelor’s in Theater at Portland State University and studied at the Institute for Contemporary Performance, a year-long training program created by Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. Last fall he served as an understudy for Third Rail’s “Blink”, and was seen most recently at the Historic Alberta House in a workshop featuring the writing of local artist Ken Yoshikawa.

In his personal work as a deviser, Akitora is focused on synthesizing a wide range of creative and technical hobbies with his experience in theater — aiming to let a curiosity for technology expand what is possible as a performer. When not onstage, he is often mashing buttons in the booth at CoHo Productions, or working as a teaching artist with elementary and middle school students.

Akitora first came to Life In Arts Productions in 2018 when responding to a last-minute casting call for a series of staged readings. While the company struggled to find its feet for a while, Akitora was always an important presence in the various conversations and readings that took place over the years, including participating in the Life In Arts Zoom Play Reading Group throughout the pandemic, as well as being a crucial part of several brainstorming sessions about the direction of the company and how best to move forward.

This is Akitora’s first opportunity to participate in a full production with Life In Arts, and he is happy to be sharing his experience in devising and movement with the ensemble of Of Mice and Men.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke