Stan Lai

Lai was born on 25 October 1954 in Washington D.C., where his father was serving in the Republic of China's Embassy. He returned to Taiwan with his mother in 1966. Lai studied English literature at Fu Jen Catholic University and graduated in 1976. In 1978, Lai married Ding Nai-chu (丁乃竺). After the marriage, the couple went to the US for further studies. The couple have two daughters: Stephanie, an actress, and Celeste Lai, a New York-based animator.

Lai received his Ph.D. in Dramatic Art from University of California, Berkeley in 1983. After his return to Taiwan, Lai taught and served as Dean of School of Theatre Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts. In 1984, Lai and Ding, along with Taiwanese actors Lee Li-chun and Lee Kuo-hsiu, founded Performance Workshop,[1] a contemporary theatre group that has become one of the most celebrated in the Chinese world. Lai became the Artistic Director while Ding served as the Managing Director. Their work has revitalized theatre in Taiwan and continually pioneered new horizons in modern Chinese theatre. Since its founding in 1984, Performance Workshop has produced more than 40 of Lai's theatrical works and collaborations, including iconic pieces such as Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, The Village, A Dream Like a Dream, and AGO.

In 2006 and 2007, Lai taught at Stanford University as Visiting Professor and Resident Artist for the I.D.A. program. In 2013 he lectured at Berkeley as Avenali Fellow and Artist in Residence. In 2019 he taught at Berkeley as Artist-in-Residence.

A prolific author of 40 original performed plays to date, Lai was also commissioned by the government of the Republic of China to work on a number of large-scale events in Taiwan. In 2009 Lai was Creative Director of the acclaimed Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the International Deaflympics Games in Taipei. In 2010, Lai worked as Creative Director for the Gala in Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Republic of China. Also In 2010 he served as Creative Director for the Taipei International Flora Exposition. Lai took on the position of General Consultant for the 2011 Taiwan Lantern Festival held in Miaoli County, attracting a whopping 8.02 million visitors. In May 2013, along with Chen Xianghong, actor Huang Lei, and theatre director Meng Jinghui, Lai co-founded the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, for which he serves as Festival Director. In April 2015, Lai's opus magnum Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land had its professional American premiere, in English, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, running from April 15 through October 31.

In December 2015, Lai opened Theatre Above, a 699-seat theatre located in Xujiahui, Shanghai, dedicated to the performance of his works.

In 2016, Lai directed the San Francisco Opera's production of the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber.[2]

In September 2018, Lai's Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden had its premiere at the Huntington Library. The site-specific piece was produced in collaboration with the Huntington and CalArts Center for New Performance, and in association with the Shanghai Kunqu Troupe.

Stan Lai's plays have been described as "The pinnacle of our era of theatre." (The Beijing News)[3] Since 1984, his over 30 original plays have continually pioneered the way toward new horizons in modern Chinese theatre. China's prominent literary critic Yu Qiuyu says that Lai's work “always has the ability to touch the heartstrings of countless audiences.”

Lai's most famous works includes That Evening, We Performed Crosstalk (1985), which revived the dying art of "Crosstalk" in Taiwan; The Village (2008), described by the China Times as "a collectible treasure for our generation" and by the Beijing News as "The pinnacle of our era of theatre";[4] the 8 hour epic A Dream Like A Dream (2000), described by prominent theatre critic Raymond Zhou as "a major milestone in Chinese theater, possibly the greatest Chinese-language play since time immemorial";[5] and perhaps his best known play Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (1986), described by the New York Times as "may be the most popular contemporary play in China…by the end, the audience is left to contemplate the burdens of memory, history, longing, love and the power of theater itself."[6] Unauthorized productions of the play in China alone number over an astounding 1,000 performances. In 2007, Lai directed his own English translation of the play at Stanford University.

Lai's “crosstalk” (xiangsheng) plays, starting with the groundbreaking That Evening, We Performed Crosstalk (1985) have virtually forged a new theatrical genre. These hugely popular works have resuscitated the dying traditional performing art form of Xiangsheng. His epic 8 hour A Dream Like A Dream (2000), which has been compared to Peter Brook's Mahabharata, “may be the most cosmic piece of theater in the Chinese-language canon,"[7] revealing Buddhist and universal themes of suffering and recurring life cycles in a unique performance format devised by Lai that places the audience in the center of the space, with performance surrounding audience.

Lai remains a significant cultural bridge between Taiwan and China, and his influence on contemporary Chinese culture continues to grow. Aside from his creative bases in Shanghai and Taipei, Lai has been commissioned to create new works in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing. In 2009 Lai was also chief director of the Deaflympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies held in Taipei, which received high acclaim for their aesthetic beauty and representation of the deaf spirit. The Far Eastern Economic Review describes his work as "the most exciting theatre in the Chinese-speaking world."[8] Newsweek calls it "the most recent piece of evidence that Taiwan is creating the boldest Chinese art in Asia today."[9] International Herald Tribune says "His work is never one dimensional or linear, there are always layers to it."[10] In 2013, Lai served as the Artistic Director of the Inaugural Wuzhen Theatre Festival in the scenic water town of Wuzhen, China. A Dream Like A Dream opened the festival.

Lai's main tool for playwriting is his use of improvisation in collaboration with the actors, which include many of the most respected names of the time. This is a method he learned from his mentor Shireen Strooker of the Amsterdam Werkteater, and he is one of the world's foremost exponents of using improvisation as a creative tool. His 40 plays are widely varied in style and reflect on the individuality of each project he undertakes, as well as the uniqueness of each cast he works with.

Lai has also written and directed two widely acclaimed feature films, The Peach Blossom Land (1992) and The Red Lotus Society (1994). The former received top prizes at the Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore international film festivals. His improvisational experiment in television, All In the Family are Humans (1995–97), was a surprising alternative hit on Taiwan TV and ran for 600 episodes. Lai occasionally directs the works of others, including the Chinese language premiere of Angels in America, Part I, which he translated. He has also directed innovative versions of Western classics, including an evening of Samuel Beckett plays in an ancient Chinese garden environment, Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, all set in Chinese backgrounds, in collaboration with Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra.

In 2007, Lai became a best-selling author in Taiwan and China with his book on creativity called Stan Lai On Creativity (Chinese Pinyin: Lai Shengchuan de Chuangyixue), based on a course on Creativity he taught at Stanford University. This book has gained a reputation in business as well as artistic readers as a unique take on how one can train in creativity. His plays have been published in numerous Chinese editions in both Taiwan and China, as well as in English versions from Oxford and Columbia University Press. In 2011 Lai embarked on a book tour with his Stan Lai On Theatre, sharing his experience as a playwright/director for the past three decades. A collection of nine major Lai plays was published in Chinese by CITIC Press Group in 2019. A collection of 12 plays by Lai is scheduled to be published in English by the University of Michigan Press in 2020.

Lai has been the recipient of Taiwan’s highest award for the arts, the National Arts Award, twice - 1988 and 2001, among many other awards, including being inducted into the Chinese Theatre Hall of Fame in 2007. His films have won international awards at the Berlin, Tokyo and Singapore International Festivals. In 2007, Lai was named Creative Person of the Year by Innovation China Awards, Entrepreneur of the Year by EY, and received the 11th Taipei Cultural Award presented by then Mayor of Taipei Hau Lung-pin. In 2010, he was chosen by Newsweek China as Man of the Year in the field of Culture and was named Person of the Year at the One Drama Awards in Shanghai. In 2011, he received the Grand Cordon, Order of Brilliant Star from the Presidential Office, the highest civilian decoration for Taiwan. Also in 2011, Lai won Best Director at the One Drama Awards. In 2013 Lai won Annual Creativity Grand Prize presented by the Beijing News. In June 2019, Lai became the first Chinese theatre professional to be inducted into the Sibiu Walk of Fame at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania's pre-eminent performing arts event.

• PW Shop Stan Lai
• Stanford Daily Interview
• International Herald Tribune Review of 'Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land'
• NY Times review page for Stan Lai