One of the most celebrated voices in the contemporary Chinese theatre, Stan Lai has been called "The best Chinese language playwright and director in the world." (BBC) "The preeminent Chinese playwright and stage director of this generation." (China Daily) "Asia's top theatre director." (Asiaweek) "The most celebrated Chinese language playwright and director in the world and his body of work - which to date includes over 35 original plays - has redefined how we think about the art form itself. " (Broadway World) In his “Foreword” to Selected Plays of Stan Lai, Vol 1 (Edited by Lissa Tyler Renaud, University of Michigan Press, 2022).Robert Brustein has called Lai "The major contemporary Asian playwright of his time, perhaps of all time."
Born in the U.S., Lai began his creative career in Taiwan, and now his works are performed all over China and the Chinese speaking world, as well as in the West. His noted works include That Evening, We Performed Crosstalk (1985) , credited with revitalizing the dying art of crosstalk (xiangsheng) in Taiwan, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (1986), called by the New York Times as "the most popular contemporary play in China," The Village (2008) described by the Beijing News "the pinnacle of our era of theatre," his epic 8 hour A Dream Like A Dream (2000), called by China Daily as "possibly the greatest Chinese-language play since time immemorial," and his latest Ago, which has been hailed as “a new kind of theater, one equipped to respond to the pressures of the 21st century.”
Lai has also written and directed two widely acclaimed feature films, The Peach Blossom Land (1992) and The Red Lotus Society (1994), the former which received top prizes at the Tokyo, Berlin, and Singapore international film festivals. Lai is also an acclaimed opera director and event director (Deaflympics Opening Ceremony, 2009). His awards include Taiwan's National Arts Award, which he has won an unprecedented two times (1988, 2001), "Man of the Year" for Cultural Affairs, Newsweek China (2010), and a Star on the Walk of Fame at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (2019).
In 2013, Lai co-founded the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, which has quickly become one of the top festivals in China, and in Asia. In 2015, he founded Theatre Above, a 699-seat venue in Shanghai dedicated to the performance of his works.
Lai's work in the West includes Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2015), the opera Dream of the Red Chamber at the San Francisco Opera (2016), his immersive piece Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library and Gardens (2018) in Los Angeles, and a workshop production of AGO at the University of California, Berkeley (2019).
Lai holds a Ph.D in Dramatic Art from Berkeley, and has taught extensively at the Taipei National University of the Arts, and at Berkeley and Stanford. His book Stan Lai on Creativity is a best seller in China and Taiwan. His plays have been published in numerous Chinese editions including a recent 9 volume set (Beijing, Citic Press), as well as in English versions from Oxford and Columbia University Press. 12 of his plays in his own translation, Selected Plays of Stan Lai (3 vols., Edited by Lissa Tyler Renaud, University of Michigan Press, 2022).
Lai is currently Artistic Director of Performance Workshop, Taiwan, Theatre Above, Shanghai, and Co-founder and Festival Director of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, China.