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Dear Voter,

On behalf of our company and our entire producing team, we thank you for joining us at LIFE OF PI. We invite you to revisit the show’s dazzling stagecraft, emotional and uplifting storytelling, and remarkable performances.

Warmly,
The Producers of LIFE OF PI
Simon Friend, Daryl Roth, Hal Luftig, Mark Gordon

An Exhilarating Evening of Theatre!

Wall Street Journal

Oh, is It a Wonder! Life of Pi Delivers Magic.

The New York Times

Life of Pi Creates Theatrical Magic and Thrills Us With Sheer Emotion and Awe.

New York Post

A Feast for the Eyes!

Washington Post

Spectacular and Spellbinding!

Wall Street Journal

A Most Impressive and Well-executed Piece of Theater.

AMNY

Thrilling!

NY Daily News

Gives New Breath to Broadway.

The Today Show

Best Play

Life of Pi

Lolita Chakrabarti


2022 Olivier Award Winner for Best Play

Lolita Chakrabarti is one of theatre’s most sought-after adaptors.

The Economist

This is a faithful yet new telling of LIFE OF PI. Elements that are already vivid on the page really burst to life on the stage.

Yann Martel

LIFE OF PI delivers magic. That roaring you hear at the show’s end? It’s the sound of a standing ovation!

The New York Times

I first read Yann Martel’s novel in 2002. I found the story to be amazing and open-ended; there was an ambiguity to it that stayed with me. The story is an important examination of faith and survival. We learned from the run in the West End and were able to adapt and make changes to bring the best version of this story to Broadway. My hope is that audiences see their own lives in the characters in the play – whether it’s the pragmatic atheist, the strict father, the spiritual explorer, the fun auntie, or the empathetic diplomat. I hope people leave the theatre talking about what they believed happened on that boat. I hope they are inspired by Pi’s curiosities and sense of wonder.

Lolita Chakrabarti

Best Direction of a Play

Max Webster


Max Webster makes sure to deliver the magic and the realism both.

The New York Times

Max Webster’s staging is a technical marvel that makes the most of its moving parts.

New York Theatre Guide

GLORIOUS! This imaginative and powerful production is a wonder to behold.

Entertainment Weekly

When I first read Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of LIFE OF PI, I found it to be a profound and moving story that asked important questions about survival, immigration, faith, our connection to the natural world, and our instincts as human beings. I also thought, ‘how on earth am I going to do this?!’

There is something about being asked to stage impossible things that is really exciting to me. There is opportunity for invention, creativity, playfulness, and making something that is surprising to the audience. Staging something impossible asks us in a deep way to engage our imagination. That, for me, is the core of what happens when we go to the theatre. We sit together in a room and think about how we might imagine something. And that is an act of real humanity.

Max Webster

Best Choreography

Finn Caldwell


The single greatest innovation in puppetry ever to hit the global stage.

NY Daily News

The animals prowl and canter and leap with astonishing character and style. And Richard Parker, animated by three puppeteers at any given time, is the show’s striped jewel.

The New York Times

The innovative staging of these vibrant puppet creations invokes a sense of wonder that only grows as the play unfolds.

Entertainment Weekly

These creatures feel lifelike without diminishing the childlike sense of wonder that can make puppetry so magical.

TheaterMania

Best Original Score

Andrew Mackay


Besides the spellbinding puppetry, the production features stunning projection designs, special effects, lighting, sound design and musical underscoring that combine to create a truly stunning experience.

New York Stage Review

Best Scenic Design of a Play

Tim Hatley & Andrzej Goulding


2022 Olivier Award Winner for Best Set Design

This version relies on stagecraft to visualize the water, the weather, and the wildlife—and it’s done with great imagination and precision.

Chelsea Community News

Extraordinary and stunning projections make the new spectacle show LIFE OF PI seaworthy.

The New York Post

Too often in stage plays projections merely distract from flesh-and-blood actors, but Goulding’s marry perfectly with Hatley’s set and Abeysekera’s playfulness.

The New York Post

Tim Hatley’s inspired scenic designs will have you scratching your head wondering ‘how did they do that?’

New York Stage Review

Tim Hatley’s scenic design wondrously conjures up a lifeboat that takes up an entire universe when it asks us to board it.

Theatrely

Best Costume Design of a Play

Tim Hatley, Nick Barnes, & Finn Caldwell


It is very rare for a puppet designer that a project comes along combining puppets and actors in such a seamless and exciting way as LIFE OF PI.

We wanted to allow and encourage the audience to enjoy treading the fine line between objective verity and theatrical storytelling. Our aim was to make puppets that felt vital, palpable, and able to convey the rigors of life and death and the serious themes of the play, whilst avoiding becoming overly naturalistic.

Nick Barnes, Co-Puppet Designer

The emotional engagement is phenomenal in its weight and how well the tale resonates across the ocean and the stage, but none of that would work as well as it does if not for the phenomenal talent of the whole production/design team, namely; the breathtaking scenic and costume design by Tim Hatley (West End/Broadway’s Travesties), the detailed and dynamic puppet designs by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes.

Front Mezz Junkies

Best Lighting Design of a Play

Tim Lutkin


2022 Olivier Award Winner for Best Lighting Design

Lighting Pi is a complex and intricate endeavor. I harnessed new technologies to create seamless transitioning between the different worlds Pi conjures up in his storytelling.

The challenge is to fully embrace the video world, enhancing it constantly with deep saturated color washes and texture whilst drawing the audience’s eye to the performers and puppets. For this, we pioneered a specific use of a complex lighting track system. With its use, we were able to follow multiple performers and puppets in a full spectrum of colors and angles to make them sing out again the show’s wonderful floor designs and backdrops.

Tim Lutkin

Lutkin’s lighting, which turns a bustling market into a salty cargo ship with the flick of a switch, exemplifies the height of simple, jaw-dropping stagecraft.

Theatrely

Best Sound Design of a Play

Carolyn Downing


Composer Andrew T. Mackay has given the show the full orchestral treatment, while sound designer Carolyn Downing comes up with atmospheric, at times terrifying effects.

TheatreMania

Best Leading Actor in a Play

Hiran Abeysekera


2022 Olivier Award Winner for Best Actor

Abeysekera is an acrobat, leaping across the raft with wild but nimble abandon. His acting matches that athleticism, moving through quick juts of panic and slower moments of retrospection with equal agility.

Broadway News

Mr. Abeysekera’s beaming eyes are almost a special effect of their own, so impressively do they transmit the various stages of Pi’s emotional journey

The Wall Street Journal

A SIGHT TO BEHOLD! A visually enchanting meditation on the nature of truth and the comforting power of storytelling.

TheaterMania

The Today Show

Go behind the scenes of the puppetry of Broadway’s ‘Life of Pi’

The New York Times

Puppetry So Lifelike, Even Their Deaths Look Real

The New Yorker

“Life of Pi” Comes to Broadway

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