YANN MARTEL (Novelist) is a Canadian writer. He is the author of a collection of short stories and four novels, most notably Life of Pi, for which he won the 2002 Man Booker Prize. Writing credits include: The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, Self, Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil, The High Mountains of Portugal and the non-fiction collection 101 Letters to a Prime Minister: The Complete Letters to Stephen Harper. Martel is presently at work on Son of Nobody, a novel about the Trojan War. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.

LOLITA CHAKRABARTI (Playwright) Lolita Chakrabarti OBE is an award-winning playwright and actress.  She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has carved out an innovative, diverse and long running career.

Lolita’s original play about motherhood, chaos and legacy, Calmer, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2024.

Her highly anticipated adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s award winning novel Hamnet opened at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon and transferred to London’s West End in 2022.

Lolita adapted the Booker prize winning novel Life of Pi for the stage, which premiered to 5-star reviews at the Sheffield Crucible in July 2019. It opened in London’s West End in December 2021 and was nominated for nine Olivier Awards and won five, including Best Play. Life of Pi won three Tony’s during its Broadway run, and four awards at the UK Theatre Awards, including Best Play and Best Director.

Her original play, Hymn, was streamed live from The Almeida in London and broadcast on Sky Arts, during the coronavirus pandemic, to huge critical acclaim. It opened to audiences at The Almeida in July 2021 and will receive it’s North America Premiere in Chicago in spring 2025.

Her adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2019. It was a collaboration between Rambert dance company, 59 Productions, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Lolita. Invisible Cities also played at the Brisbane Festival.

Lolita’s debut play Red Velvet premiered at the Tricycle Theatre in London in 2012, transferred to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York and the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End.  Red Velvet was nominated for nine major awards including two Oliviers. Lolita won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, The Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the AWA Award for Arts and Culture.  Red Velvet has had over forty productions worldwide and is now studied in the UK and US

Lolita was the dramaturg on Message in a Bottle, a show by Katie Prince, a fictional refugee story performed in dance to Sting’s music. It opened at the Peacock Theatre in February 2020 and can now be seen on film.  She was also dramaturg on Sylvia by Kate Prince, a hip-hop musical about the suffragettes, at The Old Vic, London.

Lolita curated The Greatest Wealth at the Old Vic in London in 2018, commissioning eight monologues of which she wrote one, about the NHS on its 70th birthday.

As an actress Lolita has enjoyed a long and varied career.   She is currently touring in Summer 1954 a double bill of Terence Rattigan plays. Other theatre credits include The Hunt ( St Ann’s Warehouse), Gertrude, opposite Tom Hiddleston, in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (RADA), Fanny & Alexandra (Old Vic), Last Seen – Joy (Almeida Theatre) which she also wrote, The Great Game, Afghanistan (Tricycle Theatre), the lead role in Free Outgoing (Royal Court and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh), John Gabriel Borkman (Donmar Warehouse), Grimm’s Tales (Young Vic) and Robert LePage’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (National Theatre).

Screen roles include “Silo” (Apple TV), “Vigil” (BBC1) and “Showtrial” (BBC1). “Wheel of Time” (Amazon), J K Rowling’s “A Casual Vacancy” (BBC1/HBO), “Criminal” (Netflix), “Defending The Guilty” (BBC), “To Provide All People” (BBC2), “Delicious” (Sky One), “Born to Kill” (CH4), “Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands” (ITV), “Vera” (ITV), “Jekyll and Hyde” (ITV), “My Mad Fat Diary 3” (E4), “Death in Paradise” (BBC1), “One Night” (BBC1), “The Smoke” (Sky1), “Outnumbered” (BBC1), WPC Jamilla Blake in “The Bill” (ITV) , “Fortysomething” (BBC), “Extras” (BBC) , “Riviera” (Sky).

Lolita was awarded with an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2021 for Services to the Arts.

MAX WEBSTER (Director) is a Tony & Olivier Award nominated director specializing in new work, opera, and live music events. Theatre credits include: The Importance of Being Earnest (Upcoming, National Theatre); Macbeth (Donmar & West End); Henry V (Donmar); Antigone, As You Like It and Twelfth Night (Regent’s Park); Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (Old Vic/San Diego Old Globe/Minneapolis Children’s Theatre); The Jungle Book (Fiery Angel); Fanny and Alexander, Cover My Tracks (Old Vic); The Twits (Leicester Curve); The Winter’s Tale (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh); The Sea of Fertility, Mary Stuart (Parco Tokyo); Much Ado About Nothing (Globe); Orlando, To Kill a Mockingbird, My Young and Foolish Heart (Royal Exchange, Manchester); James and the Giant Peach, My Generation (Leeds Playhouse). Opera: La Bohème (Göteborgsoperan, Sweden) and The Merry Widow (ENO).

ASHLEY BROOKE MONROE (Tour Director). Broadway: Life of Pi, Indecent, Fun Home, The Glass Menagerie. Broadway national tour: Hamilton (resident director). Off-Broadway: All of Me (The New Group), Julius Caesar (CSC), Death Cruise (Access Theater), The Goree All-Girl String Band (Theatre Row). Regional: All of Me (Barrington Stage Company), Fun Home (Cape Rep), Indecent (Huntington, Center Theatre Group).

TIM HATLEY (Scenic Design and Costume Design) Broadway/West End: Starlight Express 2024, Back to the Future: The Musical, Life of Pi, Dreamgirls, Travesties, Ghosts, Vincent in Brixton, Temple, Bodyguard, Shrek, Spamalot, Humble Boy, Private Lives, The Crucible, The Pajama Game, Carmen, Don Quixote, My Fair Lady, Singin’ in the Rain. Film credits include Closer, Notes on a Scandal, and Stage Beauty. Winner of three Tony Awards and three Olivier Awards for Best Design. timhatley.com.

FINN CALDWELL (Co-Puppet Design, Puppetry/Movement Director) is an Olivier Award winning director, designer and performer; he is a co-artistic director of Gyre & Gimble, where his co-director/puppet designer credits include The Four Seasons: A Reimagining (Globe), The Hartlepool Monkey (U.K. tour) and The Elephantom (National Theatre/West End). As puppet co-designer/director: The Wicker Husband (Watermill), The Grinning Man (Bristol Old Vic/West End), Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (Old Vic/San Diego Old Globe/Minneapolis Children’s Theatre) and Running Wild (Chichester/Regent’s Park/U.K. tour). As director of puppetry/movement: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Angels in America, The Light Princess and War Horse (all National Theatre/West End).  As director, credits include: Ex Machina (NIDA, Australia) and Lardo (Old Red Lion).

NICK BARNES (Puppet Design) began making puppets whilst studying drama at Hull University and theatre design at the Slade School of Fine Art and soon after started incorporating them into his theatre designs for opera and theatre. As artistic director and founder of leading UK puppet company Blind Summit Theatre, he devised and performed in shows which toured internationally from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Metropolitan Opera, whilst designing and building puppets for companies such as the ENO, Complicite and the Royal Opera House. In 2012 he co-directed the puppetry in Danny Boyle’s spectacular opening ceremony for the London Olympic Games. Nick now runs a puppet design studio in Hove, England, where he designs and makes puppets for theatre and live performance. He is the winner of an Olivier Award and TONY nominated for his puppet designs for Life of Pi.

As Puppetry Designer for Blind Summit, theatre credits include: Low Life, The Table, 1984. Madame Butterfly (English National Opera/Metropolitan Opera); A Dog’s Heart (ENO/Dutch National Opera); Shunkin and Master and Margarita (Complicite); El Gato Con Botas (Tectonic Theatre); On Emotion (Soho Theatre); Faeries (Royal Opera House) and His Dark Materials (Birmingham Repertory Theatre/ Leeds Playhouse). As Nick Barnes Puppets, credits include: Doctor Dolittle (Music & Lyrics Productions); The Lorax (Old Vic Theatre and US Tour); Ariodante (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence/Dutch National Opera); Angels wings, Angels in America (National Theatre/Broadway); Running Wild (Associate Designer/Chichester Festival Theatre/Regents Park); Mr Popper’s Penguin’s (Kenny Wax Ltd/West End/Broadway); Beauty and the Beast and The Butterfly Lion (Chichester Festival Theatre); Al Adiyat (Dubai Expo 21, AIM); Life of Pi (Sheffield Crucible, West End, Broadway) Nick has also designed large scale Firebird and Gnomus puppets for the BBC Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and created the Ironman costume for Disneyland Paris’ Summer of Superheroes show. You can follow Nicks work at www.nickbarnespuppets.co.uk

ANDRZEJ GOULDING (Video & Animation Design). Video designs include & Juliet, Room, Groundhog Day (Broadway); Starlight Express, Just For One Day, Life of Pi, The Drifters Girl, & Juliet, Message in a Bottle, Sylvia, The Unfriend, Eureka Day, Pressure (West End); People, Places and Things (St Ann’s Warehouse); Henry V, Coriolanus (Donmar Warehouse, NT Live); The Da Vinci Code (U.K. tour); Burn (Joyce Theater); The Machine (Park Avenue Armory), Message in a Bottle (tour).

TIM LUTKIN (Lighting Design). Tony and two- time Olivier Award winner. Broadway: Back the Future: The Musical, Life of Pi. Select West End: The Crucible, Back to the Future, Fiddler on the Roof, Noises Off, Strangers on a Train, Close to You, The Full Monty, Present Laughter, Chimerica, Quiz, Lungs, A Number, Elf, Big. National Theatre: Under Milk Wood, Antony and Cleopatra, LesBlancs, Jack Absolute Flys Again

TIM DEILING (Lighting Design) West End credits: SIX, Knights of the Rose, American Idiot, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Vanities the Musical. He’s also lit many U.K. tours including Club Tropicana, Our House, HMS Pinafore and Summer Holiday. He’s worked on many plays/musicals at regional U.K. theatres and throughout Europe. He’s also worked for many years as an associate to Ken Billington and The National Theater in London. Tim is an American living in London.

CAROLYN DOWNING (Sound Design) is an award-winning sound designer working internationally in a variety of fields with creativity and collaboration at the heart of her work. Carolyn’s work includes The Commonwealth Games 2022 Opening Ceremony, Birmingham; Jean Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure exhibition; The Normal Heart for the National Theater; Downstate at National Theatre, Steppenwolf  Playwrights Horizons; Henry V for Donmar; Summer and Smoke (Olivier nomination 2019) and Chimerica for Sonia Friedman Productions (Olivier award 2015).

DAVID BRIAN BROWN (Wig Design). Broadway highlights: Drama Desk Awards for Mrs. Doubtfire and War Paint. Moulin Rouge!, Life of Pi, Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Frozen, She Loves Me (Drama Desk nomination), Shrek, Legally Blonde, Spamalot, Nine, Sweet Smell of Success, Aida, Chicago, Sideshow. Film credits: “Angels in America” (Emmy nominated), Too Wong Foo….

ANDREW T. MACKAY (Original Music) Andrew is an Olivier Award nominated and award-winning classically trained composer & producer and the co-founder of the electronica/world music act Bombay Dub Orchestra.

The Oliver Award Nominated music soundtrack to Life of Pi was Andrew’s first foray into scoring for the stage which was followed by Henry V with Kit Harington (Donmar) directed by Max Webster in 2022 and Butter Arms a short film for Royal Ballet/ Royal Opera House. He also scored the play A Doll’s House by Tanika Gupta after Ibsen directed by the award-winning director Meneka Das.

He is currently working on the 4th Bombay Dub Orchestra album and on The George Harrison Project – an orchestral journey through the music of the late Beatle – for symphony orchestra and Indian ensemble which will premier in 2025.

Andrew studied piano, clarinet and composition at the London College of Music under Dr Lloyd Webber and John McCabe. His music often fuses orchestral with folk and traditional elements of music from the project’s region and has scored many films in India including the National award- winning Hamid by Aijaz Khan.

Andrew’s company Bohemia Junction Ltd exclusively represents Abbey Road Studios for India as well as N. Macedonia’s FAMES’ Skopje Studio Orchestra and has provided music services on multiple films, concerts and Games over the last decade.

He is the Director of India’s first ever Composers Lab which started in 2013 as part of Mumbai Film Festival in association with Abbey Road, PRS for Music UK and supported by BMI.

The soundtrack album to Life of Pi is available on CD and to stream on Andrew’s label the Bohemia Junction Recording Co. via the QR code below.

JACK BRADLEY (Dramaturgy) is a dramaturg, translator and playwright. As literary manager at the National Theatre (1994-2007) he advised Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner on new plays. For Sonia Friedman Productions since 2007 shows include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Mean Girls; and New York, New York. For Tricycle Theatre (2007-2012): The Great Game, The Bomb-A Partial History, The Riots. And for Simon Friend, other work: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Jack has conducted writing workshops around the world.

SCARLET WILDERINK she/her/hers (Global Associate Puppetry & Movement Director) one of the Olivier award winning puppeteers in the original West End cast of Life of Pi; then set up the ART, Broadway and Toronto productions. Regional: Life of Pi, Mirvish Theatre, American Repertory Theatre. West End: War Horse, New London Theatre; Life of Pi, Wyndham’s Theatre (Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor); Pinocchio, National Theatre. Off-West End: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Southwark Playhouse; Putting It Together, The Other Palace. U.K. regional: The Wicker Husband and Watership Down, Watermill Theatre; Treasure Island, Stephen Joseph Theatre. U.K. tour: The Comedy of Errors & A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Running Wild. International: Cabaret, MAC Theatre. Education: Guildford School of Acting. Actors’ Equity Association member.

JON HOCHE (U.S. Associate Puppetry & Movement Director/Resident Director). Broadway: King Kong (Voice of King Kong/Puppeteer). Off-Broadway: Little Shop of Horrors (Audrey 2 puppeteer); Soft Power (The Public Theater, Grammy-nominated); Vietgone (Manhattan Theatre Club); Soul Samurai, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (Ma-Yi Theater/Vampire Cowboys Theater); Hello, From the Children of Planet Earth (Playwrights Realm). National tour: War Horse (Puppeteer/Puppet Captain). TV: “Hello Tomorrow!” (Apple TV+) @JonHoche

ARC (Casting). 150+ productions across the globe & 13 Artios Awards for Casting.  Broadway/NY Past & Present Productions include: A Wonderful World, Life of Pi, Chicago the Musical, Disney’s The Lion King & Beauty and the Beast, Hadestown, Lost in Yonkers, Great Comet of 1812, Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes, 39 Steps, Pippin, La Cage aux Folles. TV/Film: Netflix, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Lionsgate, Disney Channel. West End/U.K.: Sister Act, Hadestown, Thriller Live, Menier Chocolate Factory. Tours: 1776, Girl From The North Country, Hairspray, Waitress, Urinetown, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, We Will Rock You. Regional: A.R.T., Berkeley Rep, Alley, Bay Street, Goodspeed, Hollywood Bowl, McCarter, Signature. ARC, Part of RWS Global. www.castingbyarc.com IG: castingbyarc

BOND THEATRICAL (Tour Booking, Marketing & Publicity) is an independently-owned theatrical booking, marketing and publicity company representing award-winning Broadway shows and live entertainment properties. BOND connects artists and audiences by forming strategic, authentic and profitable partnerships between producers and presenters across North America. For a complete list of current projects, please visit BondTheatrical.com

KATIE CORTEZ (Company Manager) National Tours: To Kill a Mockingbird, 1776, Waitress, The Prom, The Phantom of the Opera, Finding Neverland, Bullets Over Broadway, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

FRANK DEMING II (Assistant Company Manager) National Tours: Mean Girls, To Kill a Mockingbird (ACM), Pretty Woman (ACM), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (CSM). Regional: Virginia Theatre Festival (CM), New Harmony Theatre (CM). Graduate of the University of Montevallo. Proudly mentored by Jen and Marcus Lane, Katie Cortez, and Jack Stephens.

KELSEY TIPPINS (Production Stage Manager) (she/they). Broadway national tours: Mrs. Doubtfire, Pretty Woman the Musical, The Prom, Once On This Island, A Bronx Tale, Finding Neverland, Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Elf The Musical, and Shrek The Musical. Favorite regional: The Muny, Weston Playhouse and Piedmont Opera. For Ace. @kelseytippins

MATTHEW BROOKS, he/him (Stage Manager). National Tours: Company, Jesus Christ Superstar; A Christmas Story; An Officer and a Gentleman; Xanadu; and Rosie Revere, Engineer and Friends. Regional: Asolo Repertory Theatre; New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theatre; Connecticut Repertory Theatre; Colorado Shakespeare Festival; and the Dorset Theatre Festival. Thanks to Kelsey, Heather, my parents, and mi amore Nia most of all. Proud AEA member and graduate of the University of Illinois. matthewibbrooks.com

FOUAD HASSAN (Assistant Stage Manager) (he/him) is a blind and Arab stage manager, proud of both. Fouad dedicates his work to beautiful Arabs who rarely see ourselves and our real stories represented. With credits like Broadway: Hamilton and The Kite Runner,. Off-Broadway: We Live in Cairo. Fouad strives to foster spaces of community, care, and visibility for all.

GENTRY & ASSOCIATES (General Manager) has managed nearly 250 national and international touring theatrical productions over the past 25 years. Current and upcoming productions include A Beautiful Noise, Beetlejuice, The Book of Mormon, Come From Away, Funny Girl, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Mean Girls, Peter Pan, and To Kill a Mockingbird, The Wiz.

HANNA OSMOLSKA (Executive Producer) has general managed Life of Pi in London’s West End (Wyndham’s Theatre), on UK tour and on international engagements. She is also the Executive Director of Simon Friend Entertainment whose current and recent productions include Paranormal Activity, Here You Come Again, The Girl on the Train and The Height of the Storm.

SETH WENIG (Executive-Producer) has been with NETworks since its inception in 1995. He spearheaded the international tours of Fosse starring Ben Vereen and Ruthie Henshall. Seth has produced the Lincoln Center Theater production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific and the National Theatre production of War Horse. Together with Cameron Mackintosh, Seth served as Executive Producer for both the US and UK tours of the National Theatre’s My Fair Lady, the 25th Anniversary US tour of Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera tour, Miss Saigon. Currently, Funny Girl, The Book of Mormon, and Life of Pi. He is most proud of his greatest productions – Marlo and Camden.

SIMON FRIEND (Producer) has commissioned, developed and lead produced many productions in the U.K. including Life of Pi, which arrived on Broadway last year after a long run in London’s West End – the production won 3 Tonys and 5 Oliviers. This year has included world premiere productions of Minority Report based on Philip K. Dick’s story, and Paranormal Activity based on the Paramount Pictures films, the enormously successful new Dolly Parton musical Here You Come Again across the U.K. and in London, and the forthcoming new play Second Best. Recent West End credits: The Real Thing, Life of Pi, Bad Jews, The Starry Messenger, The Girl on the Train, The Height of the Storm (also Broadway) and Admissions, amongst many others. Simon also produced the Academy Award-winning film The Father..

DARYL ROTH (Producer) holds the singular distinction of producing seven Pulitzer Prize-winning plays: Anna in the Tropics, August: Osage County, Clybourne Park, How I Learned to Drive, Proof, Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women and Wit. The proud recipient of 13 Tony Awards and London’s Olivier Award, over 130 productions including Kinky Boots, Into the Woods, Indecent, Left on Tenth and The Normal Heart. Trustee, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Lincoln Center Theater. Honored to have been inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

HAL LUFTIG (Producer). Winner of five Tony Awards and two Olivier Awards, Hal Luftig has worked on and off Broadway for the past 35 years. Broadway includes Here Lies Love, Plaza Suite, American Utopia, Kinky Boots, Children of a Lesser God, Legally Blonde, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Diary of Anne Frank and Angels in America. Off-Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish; Scotland, PA (Roundabout); Here Lies Love (The Public). Upcoming: Becoming Nancy and Scotland, PA (Broadway).

MARK GORDON PICTURES (Producer) Broadway: Romeo + Juliet, Life of Pi, The Piano Lesson, POTUS. Off-Broadway/Regional: Teeth, Highway Patrol, Nollywood Dreams, The Buddy System. UK: People, Places and Things, Brace Brace, Punch, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play. Film: Saving Private Ryan, Speed, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Murder on the Orient Express, Source Code, Molly’s Game, Steve Jobs, The Patriot. Television: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds,” “Ray Donovan,” “Designated Survivor,” “Quantico,” “Private Practice,” “The Rookie.”

NETWORKS PRESENTATIONS (Producer) is an industry-leading producer of touring theatrical productions, committed to delivering quality entertainment to audiences worldwide for more than 25 years. Current and upcoming productions include A Beautiful Noise, Beetlejuice, The Book of Mormon, Come From Away, Funny Girl, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Mean Girls, Peter Pan and To Kill a Mockingbird, The Wiz.