“Stan Lai is Asia’s Top Theatre Director.” -- Asiaweek

Lai’s most famous work Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land “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.”-- New York Times

“Few theater artists can claim the kind of far-reaching impact Stan Lai has achieved. The Taiwanese playwright and director…has almost single-handedly created contemporary Taiwanese theater.” -- Orange County Register

Widely recognized as the most influential playwright/theatre director in the Chinese world, Stan Lai (Chinese name Lai Sheng-chuan) is also known for his award-winning films. Lai’s plays (26 original works to date) have led the way toward a vibrant new style in Chinese theatre. His Taipei based theatre group Performance Workshop is a collective of some of the finest performers in the Chinese language.

Lai’s most famous work Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land (1986) has toured worldwide, been made into an award-winning film (1992), and in 2007 was chosen as one of the top ten Chinese plays of the century. The play has been performed over one thousand times in unauthorized productions in China. Lai’s 2006 Beijing production has been a milestone in recent Chinese theatre for the breadth and depth of its influence. In 2007, Lai directed his own English translation of the play at Stanford University.

Lai’s famous “crosstalk” (xiangsheng) plays, starting with the groundbreaking That Evening, We Performed Xiangsheng (1985) have helped create the large, popular audience base for his critically acclaimed work, while at the same time resuscitating the dying traditional performing art form of xiangsheng. Audio recordings of his earlier “crosstalk” plays all became platinum recordings and have become infused in Chinese popular culture. His epic 8 hour A Dream Like A Dream has been called “a masterpiece” of modern Chinese drama, and has drawn comparisons to Peter Brook’s Mahabharata.

Stan Lai’s plays have revived Taiwan’s theatre, toured internationally, and influenced a generation of theatre artists. 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."

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1954, Lai was educated in America and Taiwan, and received his Ph.D. in Dramatic Art from U.C. Berkeley in 1983. He has received Taiwan’s highest award for the arts, the National Arts Award, an unprecedented two times (1988, 2001). In 2007, Lai was elected into the Chinese theatre Hall of Fame.

Lai’s method of creating theatre works is based on the use of improvisation as the main tool, a method he learned under the tutelage of the Amsterdam Werkteater's Shireen Strooker at Berkeley. In a studio setting, Lai presents ideas or detailed outlines to a cast, and then builds the work with the actors. Since 1984, Lai’s works made through these methods have met with critical and box-office success. The list of his plays, such as That Evening, We Performed Xiangsheng (1985), Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land (1986), The Island and the Other Shore (1989), Strange Tales from Taiwan (1991), Red Sky (1994), I Me He Him (1998), Menage à 13 (1999), A Dream Like A Dream (2000), Millennium Teahouse (2000), Sand and a Distant Star (2003) and Mumble Jumble (2003), reads like a history of modern Taiwan theatre.

Lai has also directed Western works in adaptation, including the Chinese-language premiere of Angels in America (1996). In 1998, Lai became the first director from Taiwan to direct in China, with the historic Beijing production of his Red Sky. Eminent actors from Beijing’s major theatre troupes took part in this production, the cultural significance of which was highlighted on CNN and BBC. Lai has also been invited to direct and create new works in Hong Kong, Singapore and America. He has also directed innovative versions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte and Figaro, all set in Chinese backgrounds, in collaboration with Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra.

Lai has also written and directed two widely acclaimed feature films, The Peach Blossom Land (Anlian Taohuayuan,1992, based on the play) and The Red Lotus Society (Feixia Ada,1994), which have received top prizes at the Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore international film festivals. His improvisational experiment in television, All In the Family are Human (1995-97), was a surprising alternative hit on Taiwan TV and ran for 600 episodes.

Over the years, Lai has also maintained a distinguished teaching career at Taipei National University of the Arts, where he was Professor and Founding Dean of the College of Theatre. His students make up the core of Taiwan's professional and experimental theatre culture. In 2000, he returned to Berkeley as Visiting Professor, where he first presented A Dream Like a Dream in workshop format. In 2006 and 2007, he taught at Stanford University as Visiting Professor and Resident Artist for the I.D.A. program, and created the new work Stories for the Dead. He has also taught at Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama and the Shanghai Drama Academy, and lectured at Beijing University.

Lai’s plays have been published in numerous Chinese editions in both Taiwan and China. An English version of his Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land has been collected in the Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, and his own translation of the play is scheduled for publication in an upcoming Columbia anthology. His innovative study of creativity Lai Shengchuan on Creativity (Lai Sheng-chuan de Chuanyixue, CITIC, 2006) is a best seller in China. In the Moment – the Theatre of Stan Lai (Sha-na-zhong, Taipei: China Times Press, 2003) is a full length study of his works. The “International Conference on the Works of Stan Lai” was held in Taipei in 2006, with 14 papers presented on many aspects of his works. Aside from theatre works, Lai has also used his bilingual skills over the years to translate philosophical and Buddhist works, including Matthieu Ricard’s The Monk and the Philosopher, Journey to Enlightenment, Happiness, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s Enlightened Courage.

Lai and his wife Nai-chu, who produces all his work, are coming up to their 30th wedding anniversary this year. Elder daughter Stephanie performs with the theatre group, and younger daughter Celeste is an art student in New York. Stan's home is in Taipei, Taiwan, but he spends more and more time away. Despite his busy schedule, he manages time for things like a recent retreat in the Nepalese Himalayas for his Buddhist practice.