Naoko Clara Ema

Born in Canada and raised in Japan, with some years spent in Seattle and San Antonio, Naoko is a bilingual Japanese actress and theatre director with more than three decades of stage experience under her belt. She trained and performed for over 30 years with Mumeijuku Theatre Company, the prestigious company founded by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai. Chosen from more than 1,300 applicants for Mumeijuku’s highly selective training program, she ultimately became the only member of her seven-person class to complete the rigorous three-year course. Over the next three decades, she appeared in more than 100 productions both within and beyond the company. Mumeijuku has also produced acclaimed performers including Koji Yakusho. Her stage career spans a wide range of genres and styles, from comedy and contemporary drama to Shakespeare and Japanese historical theatre. In Tartuffe, one of Tatsuya Nakadai’s later stage productions, she portrayed the quick-witted maid Dorine and received the Okayama Civic Theatre Emerging Artist Award for her performance. In recent years, she has expanded her repertoire to include on-camera work, starring bilingually in English and Japanese in the short film Hammock. The film received the Housen Short Film Award at the Osaka Asian Film Festival. Her casting type often centers on women of authority, intelligence, and emotional complexity high-functioning professionals, investigators, strategists, and mothers navigating morally or emotionally demanding circumstances. Alongside acting, she has established herself as a theatre director with a strong visual sensibility and actor-centered creative process. Her directing work includes The Seagull, The House of Bernarda Alba, Salome, Crimes of the Heart, and The Maids. Outside of acting, she is captivated by fashion, particularly vintage clothing, antique kimonos, and bold, unconventional styles. The stranger and more daring the design, the more she loves it. She also continues the classical ballet training she began in her youth, taking lessons three times a week and still dancing en pointe.