Brook Hall says “community” is the central theme behind his successful drive to bring exciting ideas to the theatrical stage in Taiwan.

Arriving in 2001 following a tour of the Broadway production “Crazy for You”, the director originally planned to spend two months as a guest artist. That turned into 15 years of frontline work in the continuing evolution of theatre on the island.

“I couldn’t speak a word to the people involved, but I found that they really wanted to learn what I had to teach,” Hall says. “I knew this was a place I could have an impact. I had a great career going in New York, and it was a tough thing to stop, but I really felt like I could bring something to this island.”

There were times when “things went sour and I thought I might leave”, he adds. But “I always eventually returned to the thought that no one else is coming here to do this – to immerse themselves in the culture and take on the local performing-arts scene as their own.”

Hall, founder of the Butterfly Effect Theatre Company and artistic director of the new LAB in Taipei’s arts-intensive Beitou district, began by teaching dance – tap, flamenco, swing and salsa – before moving on to event choreography and then directing musical theatre. For “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” in 2008 he utilised the concept of the “triple threat”, using performers who excel at acting, singing and dancing. He taught singers to dance for “Anything Goes” at the National Theatre.

Thanks to Hall’s work, the notion of triple-threat performers has gained acceptance among Taiwanese sceptics. Beyond consulting on all of Taiwan’s international musical projects, his achievements include five local premieres of international shows at the capital’s most prestigious venues.

“Fame and talent don’t always coincide,” Hall says in assessing the star-versus-talent system he found in Taiwan. “The educational level needed to make somebody a star is very low compared to the level to making someone a working actor.”

Hall points out that a key change in the past 15 years in Taiwanese theatre has been the prevalence of open auditions, modelled after those in New York, in contrast to the more apprentice-master dynamic that had been customary. The result has been a greater mix of talent in theatre productions that wasn’t possible under previous institutional arrangements.

There is a line, he says, separating performances made for purely artistic reasons and those veering toward product promotion. Unfortunately, the big producers continue to prioritise profit over substance. “What is and isn’t financially successful is what drives decisions, rather than what’s interesting and what’s good.”

For Hall, the impetus to start Butterfly Effect was the desire to get back to quality production. While pitching his production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, one of the biggest barriers he faced was the widespread belief – still rife among cultural bigwigs – that what had never been done in Taiwan before could not be viable.

“If you do something good and people like it, it will generate its own interest,” Hall says. The rock musical featuring a fictional gender-queer East German singer ended up mesmerising audiences at Hua-shan Cultural Village.

That success didn’t bring down all the institutional hurdles, however. In central Taipei, venues are scarce – and none has hosted a production running 30 consecutive days – which makes logistics and transport costs a perpetual and expensive headache.

In 2014 Hall established the LAB in the Polymer artist collective occupying a converted fabric warehouse to secure a permanent space for future productions. To keep the space filled, Hall presented five shows in the first year, including “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “Wait until Dark”. It quickly earned a reputation for cultivating new talent and taking creative risks.

Building the LAB walls, lighting system and dance studio and attracting corporate sponsors for other equipment has gone hand in hand with growing a community of actors, directors, filmmakers and photographers from home and abroad.

Hall says local actors trained overseas became keen to return to Taiwan due to the new opportunities available. He hopes young Taiwanese directors denied the chance to work due to the island’s age hierarchy can use the space to experiment.

His philosophy for use of the space is simple: “Put a hole in the wall, do whatever you want to do. Then put it back the way it was when you first came in.”

In its second season, the LAB will present three shows. “Ives’ Shorts” (an omnibus of six works by popular American playwright David Ives) premieres on March 11. “God of Carnage” is slated for June. And a complete hip-hop version of Shakespeare’s “A Comedy of Errors”, directed by Hall, is set for November.

In September there’ll be a second 24 Hour Festival, in which writers, directors and actors have just one day to conceive and stage a 10- to 15-minute performance.

Having established a space for the community for the next several years, Hall says he wants “other people to come play in the sandbox”.

“I don’t need to be the kid that has all the tools, who says, ‘Look what I made, come watch.’ Let’s get everybody up.”