musical.today Osaka, Japan
Orix Theater
Osaka's long-running Shinmachi theatre, and the second and last Japanese stop of the 2026 dates — four days after Tokyo closes. It opened in 1968 as the Osaka Kosei Nenkin Kaikan and was the largest concert hall in the city.
The building
The complex opened in April 1968 with a main hall of 2,400 seats, a smaller hall, lodgings and two restaurants, and for years it was the biggest room in Osaka. Orix Real Estate bought it in October 2009 and it has carried the company's name since.
Its history is mostly music rather than theatre: Queen, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Jackson 5 and James Brown all played the main hall. A touring musical in it is the exception, not the pattern.
Opening dates, capacities and architects on this page come from the theatre's own history pages and from Wikipedia.