Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaption of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel Life of Pi will premiere at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre with performances beginning Thursday, March 9, 2023, ahead of an official opening on Thursday, March 30, 2023.
The Broadway staging is produced by Simon Friend, Daryl Roth, Hal Luftig, Mark Gordon and Playing Field. Prior to Broadway, Life of Pi will make its North American Premiere at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, co-led by Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Executive Director Kelvin Dinkins, Jr. from December 4, 2022, through January 29, 2023.
Life of Pi is directed by Max Webster, with Set and Costume Design by Tim Hatley, Puppet and Movement Direction by Finn Caldwell, Puppet Design by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, Video Design by Andrzej Goulding, Lighting Design by Tim Lutkin, Sound Design by Carolyn Downing, and Original Music by Andrew T Mackay.
“Having started work seven years ago to bring Yann Martel’s much-loved story to the stage, for it to live on Broadway is enormously gratifying,” said producer Friend, “Life of Pi has been so joyously received by audiences young and old in the UK, which is testament to the skill of the large team of artists delivering a show which entertains, and makes you think and feel in equal measure. We can’t wait to welcome audiences on Broadway.”
Said playwright Chakrabarti, “It has been such a privilege to adapt Yann Martel’s modern classic Life of Pi for the stage. It was daunting, creatively, exciting, and always collaborative. To be able to tell this story the way I imagined it, to create the world using my references and viewpoint has been an extraordinary gift…It is a beautiful, visceral, magical show, a story of survival which all of us can fundamentally relate to after the effects of the pandemic.”
Based on the Man Booker Prize-winning novel, which has sold over fifteen million copies worldwide, Life of Pi tells the story of a sixteen-year-old boy name Pi who is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The book also inspired a 2012 film adaptation.
Life of Pi on Broadway is produced by Simon Friend, Daryl Roth, Hal Luftig, Mark Gordon, Playing Field, Tulchin/Bartner Productions, Gavin Kalin, Hunter Arnold, Hall Smalberg Winkler, 42nd.club, Elizabeth Armstrong, Eilene Davidson, Federman Jenen Productions, Susan Gallin, Independent Presenters Network, John Gore Organization, Kuhn Dodani, Harriet Leve, Mary Lu Roffe, Catherine Schreiber, Anthony Tang, Triple Threat Productions, American Repertory Theatre and Sheffield Theatres, with Aaron Lustbader and Hanna Osmolska serving as Executive Producers.