Since its founding, Sophia University has engaged in language dramas or theatrical production performed in foreign languages. This stemmed from the belief that theater was the most effective means of learning languages and literature. According to the Sophia University History Archives, Volume 2, students were able to correctly learn foreign language pronunciation, intonation, timing, and emotional expression, including gestures, under the guidance of foreign professors. In other words, Sophia’s “language drama” was a learning method—acquiring language through wholehearted, expressive activity. This approach was rooted in the Jesuit tradition of emphasizing theatrical production in youth education.

Father Henri Boucher’s diary, one of Sophia University’s founders, records that a German-language play was performed in the red-brick building’s auditorium on February 19, 1915. While the specific play remains unknown, it indicates that language-based theatrical performances for language education were conducted from the university’s founding.

On November 3 and 4, 1921, Schiller’s Wallenstein was staged under the direction of Father Victor Gettelman, an avid theater enthusiast. The performers were students, including first-year undergraduates who had diligently studied German in the preparatory course before advancing to the undergraduate program. Initially, both German- and English-language plays were staged. German productions included Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, Hans Sachs’ ‘The Student from Paradise’, and original plays adapted from Grimm’s ‘Fairy Tales’ by theater enthusiast Father Heuvers. Meanwhile, English productions featured works such as Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’.

German-language drama has been performed since the university’s founding. While the Deutscher Ring (a society for comprehensive research on German culture) staged productions starting in 1950, a new “German-Language Drama Executive Committee” was established in 1973. The group was renamed “Gruppe ’76” in 1976, then “German-Language Drama Group Gruppe” in 1987, and finally “German-Language Drama Group” in 1994.

The group has staged works by renowned German playwrights, including Bertolt Brecht, Goethe, Kleist, Hofmannsthal, and Lessing. The group has also performed challenging pieces such as Peter Handke’s Kaspar, which pushed the boundaries of traditional theater. The production of Hermann Schulz’s “The Wind Returns Here Too” in 1987 featured fantastical stage design and incorporated Japanese language into the performance. This led to diverse feedback, both within and outside the university.

Spanish language drama originated within Department of Hispanic Studies, where they performed zarzuela, a type of operetta, prior to the founding of the Language Drama Festival in 1960. This gradually evolved into full theatrical productions staged by the Spanish Culture Research Society, and Department of Hispanic Studies. Following an interruption, the “Spanish Theater Research Society” was established in 1977, presenting works by prominent Spanish playwrights such as Víctor Luis Iriarte and Antonio Buero Vallejo.