Stan Lai
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Stan Lai

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Stan Lai (Lai Shengchuan) has been considered the "best Chinese language playwright and director in the world" (BBC), the "preeminent Chinese playwright and stage director of this generation" (China Daily), and "Asia's top theatre director" (Asiaweek). In the Foreword to Lai's monumental 3 volumes of plays in English, Robert Brustein calls him "an indispensable figure in world theatre... he remains unchallenged as the major contemporary Asian playwright of his time, perhaps of all time." Stan Lai's work has pioneered the course of modern theatre in Taiwan, China, and other Chinese-speaking regions, and includes those works regarded as masterpieces of the modern Chinese-language theatre, such as Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, The Village, and his 8-hour A Dream Like A Dream, which China Daily called "possibly the greatest Chinese-language play since time immemorial." Born in Washington, D.C. in 1954, Lai grew up bilingual in America and Taiwan. After receiving a Ph.D. in dramatic art at U.C. Berkeley, he began his career in Taiwan in the 1980s, during a time of martial law, when little organized theatre activity existed. He chose not to imitate or stage Western works, instead using improvisation as a tool to build plays with his students and actors. The results were new but accessible theatrical forms that dealt organically with the emerging issues of the day. Lai's over 40 original plays chronicle the external and internal journeys of the fast changing Chinese speaking world. Many of his earlier works were done with his Taipei-based Performance Workshop. Since 1998, his plays have been performed in China, influencing a generation of theatre artists and audiences. Lai directs his own plays, which he has also designed and composed for. He is an award-winning filmmaker (The Peach Blossom Land, 1992) as well as an acclaimed opera and event director. He is co-founder of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, the leading festival in China, and leads Theatre Above, a Shanghai venue dedicated to the performance of his works. He is a celebrated author on creativity, and has taught extensively at Taipei National University of the Arts, U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, and CalArts. Lai is married to Nai-chu Ding, who over the years has produced most of his work.
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  • CreativitRy cover art
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    • CreativitRy

    • Asia’s Iconic Playwright Reveals the Art of Creativity
    • By: Stan Lai
    • Narrated by: Stan Lai
    • Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
    • Release date: 27-06-2026
    • Language: English
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