Shoraku Miyoshi

Miyoshi Shōraku (also written Shoraku Miyoshi) was a Japanese jōruri playwright active in the mid-18th century, during the great age of puppet theater in Osaka. Reliable reference sources differ on his exact life dates, but Columbia's Bunraku database gives them as roughly 1696?-1772?, while Japanese kabuki reference material suggests he likely died around 1771 and notes that many details of his early life remain uncertain.

What is clear is his importance as a collaborator. He worked with leading dramatists such as Namiki Senryū and Takeda Izumo, and his name appears on more than 50 plays. He is associated with many enduring classics of the Japanese stage, including Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy, Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, Kanadehon Chūshingura, The Summer Festival at Naniwa, and The Two Butterflies.

Japanese theater guides describe him as a respected senior figure at the Takemoto-za, admired for strong dramatic structure and lively wordplay. Even though he was rarely the sole credited author, his long career and repeated appearance on major works show how deeply he helped shape the repertoire that later audiences came to think of as the heart of bunraku and kabuki.