“Take off your clothes.” For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether I had signed up for kabuki or for a low-budget porno. This was our first rehearsal and they were already asking me to get undressed? That’s more of a second- or third-rehearsal kind of thing, isn’t it? Fortunately, we only had to strip to our undies, and it was just for the purpose of putting us into costume—no funny business. The five of us were dressed in colorful new kimonos, embroidered in gold. Everyone else had powerful, masculine patterns on theirs, like dragons, lions and waves. I had a rooster. Three weeks prior, I had been invited, along with four other native-speaking English teachers, to join an amateur kabuki production. Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theater, spoken in an exaggerated, cantering rhythm. There are stylized movements to accompany the fancy costumes, and live shamisen (a Japanese string…