Lolita Chakrabarti
Playwright
Lolita Chakrabarti is an award-winning playwright and actress. Her debut play, Red Velvet, won several awards including The Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright 2013 and an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Life of Pi, premiered at the Crucible Theatre in 2019. It was nominated for 9 Olivier Awards, winning 5 including Best New Play. Four years later, it opened on Broadway, garnering 3 Tony Awards in 2023. Her adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel, Hamnet, opened at the RSC in 2023 and transferred to London’s West End.. Hamnet will tour the US in 2026. Her play, Hymn, set in London, opened at the Almeida during the pandemic and was live streamed internationally, returning for a live run in the summer of 2021. In 2025 Hymn had a new production at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre which Lolita rewrote to be set in Chicago.