Leonard Pronko

Leonard Cabell Pronko (1927 – November 27, 2019) was an American theatre scholar best known for introducing the Japanese dance drama kabuki to the West, beginning in the 1960s.^[1][2] He was a professor of theatre at Pomona College^[3] in Claremont, California, where he taught from 1957 to 2014.^[4][5]

Beginning in 1965, he directed some twenty kabuki productions in English at the college and elsewhere. In 1970, he was the first non-Japanese to study at the Kabuki Training Program at the National Theatre of Japan. He studied kabuki dance with a number of eminent dance teachers both in the U.S. and in Japan. In 1972, Pronko received a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his kabuki productions. In 1986, Pronko received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Degree, from the government of Japan in recognition of his achievements in introducing kabuki to the West. In 1997 he received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education.

Pronko had written a number of books on western and eastern theatre, including The World of Jean Anouilh, Avant-garde,^[6] Theatre East and West and Guide to Japanese Drama. He has translated the plays of Alfonso Sastre, and published monographs on a number of French playwrights. For 27 years, Pronko was Professor of Romance Languages at Pomona College and taught French language and literature and occasionally Spanish and Italian language. He directed plays, including many western classics from Marlowe and Racine to Ibsen and Pirandello.