Life of Pi National Tour at the Orpheum Theatre

Life of Pi was originally a Booker Prize-winning 2001 novel by Yann Martel, which was also made into a 2012 film by Ang Lee. The play, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, had successful runs in London's West End and then on Broadway. Now, the national tour of the play has opened at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, playing through March 9.

Taha Mandviwala as 'Pi' and puppeteers Anna Leigh Gortner,

Shiloh Goodin and Toussaint Jeanlouis as 'Richard Parker'

in the National Tour of LIFE OF PI. 

Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

In Life of Pi, Pi, a 17-year-old from Pondicherry, India is being questioned in Mexico, where the young man has landed after 227 days adrift in a lifeboat. He tells an incredible story of his life leading up to an ocean journey on a freighter full of zoo animals, a shipwreck, and an uneasy detente with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. 

Taha Mandviwala is incredibly physical as Pi, an energetic teen with a philosophical turn of mind forced to do what he must to survive. He navigates all of the physicality of the role, as well as the shifts in tone, time, and place as his story progresses, coming back at intervals to the Mexican hospital where his story is being shared.

Amazing puppeteers bring to life a zoo's worth of animals, sound and lights create an atmosphere, and the story makes you think. The life-sized animal puppets are designed by Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell, but I could easily shout out all the designers for exceptional work. A stellar company of actors play multiple roles to present a story that is about more than a shipwreck. It's a stunning evening of theater magic that asks interesting questions about the stories we tell ourselves and each other.