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Paper short abstract

This paper examines women’s restroom queues today in Japanese theaters as a gendered practice shaped by audience composition, theater designs, policies, and venue operations. It shows how offstage infrastructures shape theatrical experience and participation in genres such as musical theater.

Paper long abstract

Why are there long lines in front of women’s restrooms in Japanese theaters today? This question foregrounds how theater spaces are materially and structurally gendered. As Joyce’s (2022) analysis of the Victorian Fanny and Stella trials illustrates, disputes over restroom access reveal the gendered assumptions embedded in public space.

In Japan, the 2015 amendment to the Entertainment Places Act (1948) requires venue operators to balance restroom provisions by considering physiological differences, venue type, and user demographics. Yet many theaters continue to face chronic shortages of women’s facilities, prompting the government’s recent inclusion of restroom improvement for women in the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2025.

Musical theaters, whose audiences are predominantly women, have undertaken systematic architectural improvements for decades. Recent renovations at the the Imperial Theater (1911) and Takarazuka Grand Theater (1924) exemplify how restroom expansion has become an institutional response to gendered audience composition. In contrast, arena concerts, especially those featuring male idol groups, often rely on spectators’ strategies, such as checking the setlist in advance to plan restroom breaks, revealing how infrastructural responsibility shifts from venue to audience. Environments such as live houses and cinema complexes, where spectators can exit more freely, and the rise of livestreamed performances further complicate the relationship between participation and restroom access. The issue is not limited to spectators. For performers and backstage staff, restroom accessibility intersects with costume constraints, spatial layout, and tight performance schedules, presenting another dimension of gendered bodily management.

By examining restroom infrastructure through the lens of performance studies and cultural studies, the paper shows that gender in contemporary Japanese theater is shaped and sustained through both the material design of venues and the everyday operational practices that organize bodily needs, revealing how infrastructural conditions shape theatrical experience and participation.