The stage version of Yann Martel’s brilliant novel Life of Pi is getting ready to hit the stage lights of Broadway! The 2022 Olivier Award-winning Best Play, will move from London to Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in March 2023. Performance of this dazzling theatre experience begins March 9th, with opening night on March 30th.
LIFE OF PI is currently playing at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End where it won five Olivier Awards including Best New Play, Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design. In an historic first for the Olivier Awards, the seven performers who play Royal Bengal tiger ‘Richard Parker’ were collectively awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The London production with its cutting-edge visual effects has garnered great critical acclaim, with one review calling it breathtaking and another saying it is not to be missed!
Based on one of the best-loved works of fiction – winner of the Man Booker Prize, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide – LIFE OF PI is a breath-taking new theatrical adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope.
After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, and who will survive?
“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 Simon Friend, producer of the Olivier Award-winning Best Play, “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.”
Max Webster directs LIFE OF PI by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti features set and Costume design by Olivier Award winner Tim Hatley, Puppet and Movement Direction by Finn Caldwell, Puppet Design by Olivier Award winners Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, Video Design by Olivier Award winner Andrzej Goulding, Lighting Design by Olivier Award winner Tim Lutkin, Sound Design by Carolyn Downing, Original Music by Andrew T Mackay, and Dramaturgy by Jack Bradley.
“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. And to see it resonate with young and old audience members alike has been humbling,” said playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, “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. I am beyond thrilled that we will bring this play to Broadway.”
Tickets: As a proud partner of LIFE OF PI, American Express® Card Members have access to exclusive pre-sale tickets before the general public beginning Monday, October 24, 2022, at 10:00 AM (ET) through Monday, October 31, 2022, at 9:59 AM (ET) at Telecharge.com. Presale tickets for LIFE OF PI are available exclusively to Audience Rewards® members from Monday, October 31, 2022, at 10 AM (ET) to Thursday, November 3, 2022, at 9:59 AM ET.
General on-sale begins Thursday, November 3, 2022, at 10 AM (ET).
To find out more, go to https://www.lifeofpibway.com/
Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti adds, “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. I am beyond thrilled that we will bring this play to Broadway.”
Stay tuned; we will have the cast announcement for you soon, plus so much more!
