Stan Lai

Life

Lai was born on 26 October 1954 in Washington D.C., where his father was serving in the Republic of China's Embassy. He returned to Taiwan in 1966. In 1976, Lai was graduate from Fu Jen Catholic University.In 1978, Lai married Ding Nai-chu (丁乃竺). After the marriage, the couple went to US for further studies. The couple have two daughters: Stephanie, an actress, and Celeste Lai, an animator.

He received his Ph.D. in Dramatic Art from University of California, Berkeley in 1983. He is also Professor and Founding Dean of the College of Theatre at Taipei National University of the Arts. In 1984, Lai and Ding founded Performance Workshop (表演工作坊), a contemporary theatre group that has become one of the most celebrated in the Chinese world. Lai became the Artistic Director while Ding is the Managing Director. Their work has revitalized theatre in Taiwan and had deep influence on the current theatre in mainland China.

Lai had 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 Berlin, Tokyo and Singapore. In 2010, he was chosen by Newsweek China as Man of the Year in the field of Culture. In 2011, he received the Grand Cordon, Order of Brilliant Star from the Presidential Office, the highest civilian decoration for Taiwan.

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.

A prolific author of 30 original performed plays to date, Lai was also director for the 2009 Summer Deaflympics, in charge of organizing the opening and closing ceremonies which were held in Taipei in September 2009.

In 2016, Lai directed the San Francisco Opera’s production of the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber.

Works

Stan Lai's plays have been described as "The pinnacle of our era of theatre." (The Beijing News) 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"; 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"; 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." 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) “may be the most cosmic piece of theater in the Chinese-language canon," 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 base in 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." Newsweek calls it "the most recent piece of evidence that Taiwan is creating the boldest Chinese art in Asia today." International Herald Tribune says "His work is never one dimensional or linear, there are always layers to it." In 2013, Lai served as the Artistic Director of the Inauagural 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 30 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 Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Figaro, all set in Chinese backgrounds, in collaboration with Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 Lai created the acclaimed Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the international Deaflympics Games in Taipei.

In 2007, Lai became a best-selling author in Taiwan and China with his book on creativity called Stan Lai On Creativity (Chinese 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.

Plays, Writer and Director

Note: Lai's plays are often written in collaboration with his actors over a process of creative rehearsals which he initiates, structures and supervises, and is responsible for writing of the final script. Credit to collaborative members is given in each individual house program.

Plays, Director

Opera

Film

Television

Large Scale Events