Japanese actress moved to KC for coffee but stayed to build community

Yahoo

17-05-2025

Editor's Note: This interview is part of an ongoing Star series highlighting Kansas Citians from historically underrepresented communities and their impact on our region. The series builds on The Star's efforts to improve coverage of local communities. Do you know someone we should interview? Share ideas with our reporter J.M. Banks.
As a teenager growing up in Tokyo, Japan, Madoka Koguchi attended a Japanese production of the musical Cats. The performance left such a lasting impression on her that she decided to pursue a life on stage. Her dream became reality in 2016, when she moved to New York and landed a role in the Broadway revival of Miss Saigon.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic brought Broadway to a halt, Koguchi found herself in a foreign country, unable to perform. During that time, a fellow cast member, Jackie Nguyen, invited her to help open a new coffee shop in Kansas City.
Since relocating Kansas City in 2020, Koguchi, 32, has made Kansas City her home. She has served as manager of Café Cà Phê. Located at 916 E 5th St, popular Vietnamese owned coffee shop in the Columbus Park a neighborhood known for the historic Italian and Vietnamese immigrant populations. She also works in public relations for KC Craft Ramen, and co-founded Yakuri KC, the metro area's first nonprofit dedicated to building community among Japanese residents.
Banks: Can you begin by telling me what it was like growing up in Japan and how did you find your way into acting?
Koguchi: So I was born in Tokyo, Japan. I was born in kind of an entertainment family. Both my mom and dad were in the music industry. My dad is a professional drummer, but I was introduced to classic ballet when I was watching a comedy show on TV when I was six and I started dancing ballet when I was seven. I wanted to be a professional ballet dancer until middle school. Then I went to see a musical called Cats. It was a Japanese production of Cats and I switched my goal to musical theater after. I immediately thought I want to be on that stage
I was fortunate to see a lot of international touring productions of musicals, mostly from the United States. So I watched West Side Story, Hairspray and The Heights. A lot of major, major shows coming from the United States.
My parents were pretty supportive because of the entertainment industry background, but it was more my grandparents or my aunt. They didn't really have much understanding of pursuing a career as an artist. I was able to go to Toronto, Canada to study abroad to learn English for a year and a half from 2014 to 2015 and I was also able to audition for Performing Arts School in New York in 2016.
I was able to graduate and then shortly after, I was able to book the National Revival tour of Miss Saigon as one of the main roles.
What brought you to Kansas City?
I moved to Kansas City in 2020 because COVID hit and our tour got shut down for good in the middle of the tour. Like so many other industries, the Broadway industry just got shut down and disappeared. Our industry felt like it was the first to be gone and the last to come back. I didn't want to wait for the Broadway industry to come back.
I felt defeated at that time. I moved to the United States for Broadway but my profession just did not exist during COVID. But one of the cast members, Jackie Nguyen ask me if I can move to Kansas City to help her open a coffee shop called Cafe Cà Phê
. So I said yes, of course, and that's how I ended up in Kansas City.
What do you enjoy about your work with Cafe Cà Phê?
At Café Cá Phe we do a lot of community work for marginalized communities like the Asian American communities, LGBTQ+ communities. I experienced a lot of difficulties as an immigrant, as a foreigner, as a non-citizen of the United States, but also as a person of color. So I'm able to contribute my own experience to the Cafe Cà Phê community work.
When you moved here were there any cultural shocks for you?
Yes, very many culture shocks. People take their time and there is this thing called personal boundaries. Because there's no word for boundaries in Japanese. So it's a very American or Western idea to me. In Japanese culture, people text about work 24/7 and you're expected to respond to the text 24/7.
The sizes of everything was a shock when I went to McDonald's for the first time in New York. I was surprised by how big a small cup of soda was. Then one portion of pasta at a diner, that was so big. But also to find a happy culture shock that it is OK to take it home, like pack the food up and take it home. In Japan that is not a thing. You're supposed to finish the meal and you're supposed to not have to take the food that you couldn't finish home. So a lot of restaurants still don't carry take out. Also the grocery store, people walking around eating grapes before checking out.
How do you tackle portraying roles that are traditionally occupied by non Asian actresses?
I got to experience that through being in the musical Little Woman at the Music Theater Heritage earlier this year. I was able to play Meg March, that was one of the sisters in Little Women. I got to portray a character that was traditionally not Asian and it is such an honor to do it. But, also understanding that there's a controversy because it's such a iconic piece and iconic sisters. Theater is supposed to be a safe place for anybody and also imaginary as well. So I was able to focus on what's true to the character.
The challenging thing for me personally was I am speaking English as my second language, and technically I'm the only person in the whole cast with an non-American accent. So I spent so much time to just pronounce each word for so many times and I recorded it myself so that I can correct my pronunciation.
There are so many words that I didn't know and people don't speak in the daily life because that piece is from the 1800s. But it was such an honor and I am so grateful.
What inspired you to start the nonprofit Yakuri KC?
Our nonprofit organization, Yukari KC, is heavily inspired by Cafe Cà Phê and Hella Good Deeds, their sister nonprofit. I started the organization to create spaces for the Japanese community in greater areas of Kansas City. There are a lot of opportunities for us to educate our culture to non Japanese people or non-Asian people in general. We do that in our daily life, either consciously or subconsciously, but what's missing is the spaces just for us, where we don't have to educate anybody. Where we can just communicate in our own languages and save space for us. I learned that taking up space is a wonderful thing by moving to Kansas City and working for Cafe Cà Phê.
When I moved to Kansas City in 2020 there was just no Japanese community that I could find. Then it took three full months for me to accidentally bump into a Japanese person in Independence. I was like, Oh my God, there's a Japanese person here. And then she happened to know a lot of people in the Japanese community in Kansas City. So she took me everywhere to bring me to people that she wanted me to meet. If I hadn't bumped into her, that wouldn't have happened, obviously. By meeting her, by being able to speak Japanese for the first time in months, I just realized how much I needed that.
So one of my personal missions for the organization is to be kind of the lighthouse for the Japanese community by hosting cultural events and community events on a regular basis.
With Yakuri KC hosting its first vendor popup recently how did it feel to be at the helm?
It was so weird but in a good way. Because I was always at the Cafe Cà Phê events as a part of Cafe Cà Phê and it was for the first time for me to be there as a part of my own organization. It was incredible to see other people, from loyal customers to other vendors, get to learn about our organization.
What do you think is the most difficult aspect of the work you do?
So there are many different Japanese people in Kansas City because Panasonic is building the power plant in DeSoto, Kansas. A lot of people from Panasonic are very new to Kansas City in general and for them they thought Yukari KC is not really something brand new. They all thought that Yukari KC was a thing for years in Kansas City and then we're like, no, we just founded our organization in January and this is a very new thing that we are trying to do.
They're pretty new. They don't really have the idea of how hard it can be to live in a place where there is no community. So I am encouraging them to come to our events so that they can meet the Japanese people who have been living in Kansas City who can help them if they need any help; like which hair salon do they do they go to, what grocery store they should get certain food at. Where should they take their kids to on the weekends.
It's a new concept so we're just trying to put our names out there and put what we're doing out there so that it's more noticeable.
What's the most fulfilling aspect of the work you do?
Just people getting connected meeting for the first time. Seeing them exchanging their numbers and I see pictures posted on their Instagram that they hung out for the first time. That just generally makes my day.
What are your organization's goals for the future?
Our goal is to be able to reach the Japanese people so we become a better, stronger community with connections within the community. I also would like to host workshops or cooking classes. Japanese people, and Japanese Americans too, miss the connection with Japanese food. I obviously missed my mom's cooking, my grandma's cooking and I'm fortunate enough that I can get the recipe from them. So connecting ourselves with food is important.
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