初舞台

Hatsubutai is an actor's first formal appearance on stage. In kabuki it usually comes in early childhood, and making one's debut under a professional stage name marks the true start of life as a kabuki actor.

In recent times a child often first appears under his real name in a trial appearance called hatsu-omemie, growing used to the theatre and its audiences before the formal debut.

One play deeply tied to debuts is Uirō-uri of the Kabuki Jūhachiban, said to have been first performed by Danjūrō II in 1718. Its heart is the iitate, a cascading tongue-twister monologue—famous today far beyond the theatre as a standard vocal-training text for announcers and voice actors.

Danjūrō XIII is said to have made his hatsubutai in May 1985 at the Kabuki-za, playing Kikanbō in Uirō-uri and taking the name Ichikawa Shinnosuke VII. Uirō-uri itself belongs to the Kabuki Jūhachiban—his career began inside the family art.