Stan Lai's The Village begins national tour

A media conference for the 2025 nationwide tour of The Village was held on Wednesday in Beijing's Century Theater, the same venue where the play made its Beijing debut in 2010, launching its first tour on the Chinese mainland.

Written and directed by acclaimed theater artist Stan Lai, The Village tells the poignant stories of people from across the mainland who relocated to Taiwan after the War of Liberation (1946-49) and settled in makeshift villages.

In 2006, TV producer from Taiwan Wang Wei-chung reached out to Lai and told him his own experiences of growing up in these villages, hoping that these stories could be passed down through a stage production. Lai then compiled more than 100 stories of 25 families and premiered the play in 2008.

The classic edition of The Village began its 2025 tour earlier this year. It will be staged in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Friday and Saturday, before returning to Beijing for its milestone 350th performance on Aug 22-23. The tour will then continue to Wuxi, Jiangsu province, on Aug 29-30. Wang himself will appear in the production as a traditional storyteller, guiding audiences through the intertwined narratives.

In 2020, to mark the fifth anniversary of Lai's own theater in Shanghai, Theatre Above, Lai and his wife, theater producer Ding Nai-chu, launched a special edition of The Village, featuring young performers from Theatre Above.

Since 2023, this special edition has become a winter staple at Theatre Above and embarked on its first national tour, staging 116 performances.

It was announced at the media conference that this edition will be performed in Hefei, Anhui province, from Sept 5 to 6; Xi'an, Shaanxi province, from Oct 31 to Nov 1; and back to Theatre Above in Shanghai from Nov 27 to Dec 7.