Lolita Chakrabarti

About Lolita

Lolita Chakrabarti is an award-winning playwright and actress. Writing credits include the stage adaptation of Life of Pi, Red Velvet, and Hymn; her acting credits include Sir Kenneth Branagh's production of Hamlet, Riviera, the forthcoming Amazon series Wheel of Time, and Vigil for the BBC. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has carved out an innovative, diverse, and long running career.

Chakrabarti adapted the classic novel Life of Pi for the stage, which won four awards at the UK Theatre Awards, including Best Play and Best Director in July of 2019. In the same month, Chakrabarti's Invisible Cities premiered at the Manchester International Festival. It was an ambitious collaboration between Rambert dance company, choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, 59 Productions and Chakrabarti. 

In 2012, her play Red Velvet premiered at the Tricycle Theatre in London. It was nominated for nine major awards including two Oliviers. Chakrabarti 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.  

Hymn, her play about male love that is neither physical nor romantic, starring Danny Sapani and Adrian Lester, streamed live from The Almeida during the coronavirus pandemic to huge critical acclaim.

Other theatre credits include Fanny & Alexandra (Old Vic), Free Outgoing (Royal Court), and for TV A Casual Vacancy (BBC1/HBO), To Provide All People (BBC2), Beowulf (ITV), Jekyll and Hyde (ITV), Criminal (Netflix), and Defending The Guilty (BBC).

Forthcoming projects include Calmer, written by and starring Chakrabarti, which will open at The Rep in Birmingham in 2021.

Chakrabarti is on the board of RADA and Rambert. She lives in South East London with husband, actor Adrian Lester, and their two daughters.