Layering Time and Space: Inside Stan Lai's Creative Method Artwork

Truth & Transcendence

Truth & Transcendence
Hosted by Catherine Llewellyn | Brought to you by Being Space

Welcome to Truth & Transcendence — a podcast for seekers, leaders, creatives, and changemakers who are exploring the deeper layers of human experience.

Launched in mid-2021, this show was born out of a time of global uncertainty. It began as a space to support conscious leadership in challenging times — a call to strength, wisdom, and integrity.

Since then, the podcast has evolved alongside the world around us. Now, we welcome a rich tapestry of guests: senior leaders, coaches, artists, spiritual guides, alternative practitioners, and everyday people living extraordinary lives.

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🔹 Guest Fridays – open-hearted, unscripted conversations that dive deep.

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Truth & Transcendence

Layering Time and Space: Inside Stan Lai's Creative Method

June 12, 2026 • Season 8 • Episode 344

0:00 | 54:05

What if the secret to a lifetime of masterpieces was doing absolutely nothing at all?

#playwrightlife #livingtheatre #artandlife

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If something in your life is beginning to open — or there is a sense of moving toward deeper alignment — you are warmly invited into this work.

A space for reflection, unfolding, and spacious conversation.

🔹 Taste session (20–30 mins) — experience the work directly
https://go.oncehub.com/TasteOfExpansiveCoaching

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About my guest:
Stan Lai grew up under martial law in Taiwan where no one became an artist, yet the clouds above Washington DC whispered to him about stillness, acceptance, and letting things form themselves. A Berkeley PhD who accidentally became the most celebrated Chinese-language playwright alive, he has spent forty years conducting plays like weather systems, layering time and place so audiences feel life unfolding all around them. The New York Times named his Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land one of the essential works of theatre of the last century.

Where our conversation went:
00:00 Welcome to Stan Lai
01:15 The clouds taught me everything
03:00 Stillness at five years old
05:20 Letting plays form like clouds
07:45 Knowing the rules, then releasing them
10:10 Nature as the ultimate teacher
12:30 The conductor of living theatre
15:00 Layering time and space onstage
18:20 Theatre does what film cannot
21:00 The hidden play nobody knew about
24:15 How love chose his path
27:00 No scripts, so he wrote his own
30:00 The scholar director is found
33:20 Secret Love and divided worlds
36:00 When wisdom meets method
39:15 The fingers are incredible but
42:00 Creativitry after twenty years
45:10 Rewriting wisdom for English readers
48:00 Staying just ahead of the audience
51:00 Being here with you now
53:00 Where to find Stan online