page_title: Keiko Sonoi
section_title: Playing outside repertoires
hierarchical_section_title: Keiko Sonoi / Biography / Takarazuka Revue / Playing outside repertoires
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 1942年『我が家の幸福』左より高杉妙子、園井恵子、古川ロッパ
context_page_description: Keiko Sonoi was a Japanese actress, who was a member of the all-female musical-performing Takarazuka Revue during the 1930s and the 1940s, best known for her role as an officer's widow in the wartime film Muhōmatsu no isshō, and for being part of the Sakura-tai or Cherry Blossom Unit of traveling shingeki play actors who died as a result of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
  The fate of the Cherry Blossom Unit was later dramatized by playwright Hisashi Inoue, and also made into a feature film by director Kaneto Shindo.
  The actress appears to have had a long-held desire to perform shingeki plays, but that was not economically viable due to the need to her support her parents and siblings. As a Takarazienne, she had the manga comic artist Osamu Tezuka as a childhood fan who lived on her block, and Astro Boy may have been influenced by Sonoi's performance of Pinochio from April to May, 1942.
context_section_description: In January 1941, Sonoi and Toho Studio movie star Hideko Takamine made guest appearances in theatrical productions by comedian Roppa Furukawa's company in Tokyo. This received notice as the first time a current Takarazuka member was seconded to appear on stage elsewhere. According to some sources, Sonoi was specially picked out by playwright Kazuo Kikuta who wrote for Roppa's troupe; Kikuta had already regarded Sonoi as a promising talent and insisted she be cast in his Sekijūji-ki wa sususmu at Takarazuka in 1940.
caption: Stage scene from Wagaya no kōfuku (1942). Left to right: Taeko Takasugi [ja], Sonoi, Roppa Furukawa.
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