Creative Dialogue

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, the late Robert Brustein called Lai "the major contemporary Asian playwright of his time, perhaps of all time."

Lai is currently Artistic Director of Theatre Above (Shanghai) and Performance Workshop (Taiwan). He is also the Co-founder and Festival Director of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, Founder of the Huichang Theatre Village, and Head of the Artistic Committee of the Nanjing Festival of New Theatre. He has continued his prolific creative career with new plays such as Flower in the Mirror, Moon in the Water, which premiered at Huichang (2024), The Long, Narrow Passageway at Wuzhen (2023), and Descent, which will premiere in Taipei in 2026.

Lindy Hume is one of Australia’s leading directors, acknowledged internationally for her progressive leadership of Australian arts organisations and festivals. Hume has led many Australian international festivals, including Perth Festival, Sydney Festival, Four Winds Festival, and Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island. Equally at home in opera, Hume has served as Artistic Director of four Australian opera companies and was guest Creative Director for Opera Australia’s 2024 Sydney Summer Season.

As a stage director, she regularly creates new productions in Europe, the US, and the UK, including San Francisco Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Royal Swedish Opera Stockholm, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Aldeburgh Festival, and Welsh National Opera. In Australasia, she has created 80+ productions, including many productions for Opera Australia and New Zealand Opera. She is well-known for creating audience-friendly, visually arresting, humanist productions and a decades-long advocate and mentor for women in arts leadership.

In recognition of her contribution to the cultural life of Western Australia, Hume holds an Honorary Doctor of Letters from The University of Western Australia. In 2021, she received her PhD from Queensland University of Technology researching creative life outside metropolitan centres; she is now recognised as one of Australia’s leading thinkers on this topic In 2021, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to the performing arts.

Hume balances her international practice as a director of opera, theatre and performance events with the roles of Creative Director of HotHouse Theatre and Crimson Rosella Creative Adventures, a new cultural and social enterprise based in regional Australia. She is also working on a book related to her doctoral thesis.

Tze Chien Chong  is a core member of The Finger Players and an award-winning playwright and director. He is the recipient of the Singapore Dramatist Award and multiple The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards; notably, his play Oiwa: The Ghost of Yotsuya swept the awards in its year of presentation, winning both Production of the Year and Best Director.

Chong’s plays have been staged internationally in Singapore, the UK, Hungary, Taiwan, and Japan. Notable presentations in Japan include Paper at the Kochi Arts Museum, Drums at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Festival, Seed at the Asian Performing Arts Festival in Tokyo, and My Father, the Earless Musician, produced by the Youkiza Marionette Theatre Company.

His published collections with The Necessary Stage and Epigram Books feature critically acclaimed works such as Charged and PIE. In 2015, Charged was named by The Business Times as one of the top ten plays of all time in Singapore. Other notable works include Turn by Turn We Turn, Poop!, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and The Book of Living and Dying. He has also written for films and television. In recognition of his contributions to the arts, he was awarded the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council in 2006.

He is currently the Festival Director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts. 

Dr. Joanna C. Lee has served as consultant and translator for such institutions as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the New York Asian Film Festival. She has provided on-stage interpretation for former US President Jimmy Carter, Chinese director Jia Zhangke, and artist Xu Bing. Since 2004, she has been a regular host and interpreter at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Hong Kong–Asia Film Financing Forum. Since 2007, she has served as English surtitle translator for the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre; she has also provided opera surtitles for the China National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Beijing Music Festival.

Beyond her translation work, Joanna has also served as publicity consultant for the “Big Five” American orchestras on their Asian tours as well as consultant on the San Francisco Opera’s productions of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Dream of the Red Chamber, and The Monkey King. She is currently serving as an outreach consultant for multiple Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in New York.