Interview: Taha Mandviwala of LIFE OF PI at Proctors

In just a few weeks, the breathtaking stage production of LIFE OF PI will sail into Proctors in Schenectady! Based on Yann Martel’s 2001 best-selling novel, which captivated readers and later became an Oscar-winning film in 2012, the story made waves once again with its 2019 stage debut in the UK before dazzling Broadway audiences in 2023. Now, it’s hitting the road with its first U.S. National Tour, and I had the pleasure of speaking with Taha Mandviwala, who brings the iconic role of Pi Patel to life. Taha isn’t just a phenomenal actor; he’s also an athlete, wellness coach, and self-proclaimed D&D enthusiast. With his infectious energy and thoughtful insights, our conversation was as inspiring as the story he helps tell on stage!

 

BroadwayWorld: Where are you these days?

Taha: Currently we are in Cleveland, so it is a balmy -2 degrees today. This is our last week here before we move on to Pittsburgh, then Cincinnati, Providence, and then I think Schenectady – so we're not too far away. It’s exciting.

BWW: What first inspired you to start performing?

Taha: I've been asked this question many times and my answer has deepened as I look further and further back. I was never the traditional artistic kid - never went to any acting summer camps or anything. I was very into science and math. But I have a younger sister, and when we were kids, we were very playful. (I also have an older brother, but he was much older than I was and I never really got much time to spend with him.) I would put on these little puppet shows for her in her room and make her laugh, and we would create these little games together on the trampoline where she would be the protagonist and I would fill the world around her being the villains or the side characters. So, we were very, very playful growing up and I think that set the seed for what was to come later.

When I was in college, I was pre-med. I took my MCAT and was on my way to start applying to med schools. However, my freshman year of college, I had met a buddy of mine named Hunter. He's one of my closest friends - and he's a performer. I started going to see his shows at Northern Kentucky University and just felt so inspired; theater was just so compelling to watch. I took an Intro to Theater class. And my junior year, I auditioned for my first college play – and that is when I switched my major. It was funny. I told my parents, “I'm switching my major to theater. Don't you want a doctor with good empathy, and good bedside manner?” [Laughs] I was trying to ease the surprise of the change. But then senior year I wholly committed.

BWW: What did your family think?

Taha: I'm the child of immigrants, coming to this country, building a life from nothing. It's their M.O. to want the best for their kids, to make sure that they can get a roof over their heads and feed themselves and do all those things. So, I think they were definitely surprised in the beginning. It took the first couple of plays and getting into the union that finally showed them the path that exists for artists in this country. None of us knew because I grew up in Kentucky where we didn't have – especially in the South Asian community in Kentucky – any examples of what this could be like. Nobody was doing the arts, let alone performing arts. So, it just took a little bit of time to really show what the lay of the land could look like. But, today they're so proud and my biggest supporters.

BWW: Knowing you got into theater a little bit later than some, has that caused any challenges for you?

Taha: I'll say yes and no. Yes, in that my knowledge may be a little bit more limited than people who have been doing this and have been so fully steeped in it their entire lives, who are just full-on theater kids. But I think the advantage is that I have a background of science, math, and sports…I did a lot of sports when I was growing up. I played a lot of soccer, and then just movement in general. I think my background was varied. When I started to do this in earnest, I got to watch and study actors, as an adult, and ask myself, “Why does this performance resonate with me? Why did he do it this way?” I think coming in later I’ve been able to appreciate things in a different light. I suppose everybody's path is different, and I'm grateful for mine having come in when I did because I feel like it gave me, forgive my language, a little bit of a fire under my ass to catch up!

BWW: Prior to LIFE OF PI, what have been some of your favorite roles?

Taha: Back in 2018, a friend of mine called me out to Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival because she was directing ROMEO AND JULIET, and she asked me to audition for Romeo. I had never studied Shakespeare; I had never performed Shakespeare before. I watched as many YouTube lectures as I could, basic Shakespeare theory, and learned iambic pentameter and the rhythm and the bones of it. I sent in my tapes, and she was like, “Yeah, we can do this.” And so I did ROMEO AND JULIET that summer! I'd say it was one of my favorite performances…it was one of the most challenging performances! The rehearsal process was so daunting, so scary. It was a leap of faith, it was a lot of trust and a lot of work, a lot of doubt and overcoming that and working through it. That became a very formative summer for me, and one that I'll never forget.

BWW: This is your first tour – but prior to the tour, you were able to replace in this same role to make your Broadway debut! What was that like?

Taha: I'll briefly tell you the story of how it happened. LIFE OF PI was well into their run on Broadway and were looking for some replacement swings because a couple of people were leaving. So, I had sent in my tape, and I got an email like 30 minutes after I sent it in asking if I could come to New York to be seen in person? I was living in Cincinnati at the time, so I was excited. I booked my flight - and it was a Frontier flight, so I only took a backpack with like a shirt and two pairs of underwear…bare minimum, cause I thought I was going for just the weekend. I go and do my Pi audition, and find out later that they really needed a Mamaji cover for the show. They threw the lines at me at the last second. Then they said, “Can you start tomorrow?” I was like, “What? Um. OK.” When Broadway calls you, you have to answer, right? So I live out of my out of my backpack for the next week and a half, handwashing my underwear and stuff in the sink and drying it on the line, which was hilarious and exhilarating at the same time. Eventually I got to go back to Cincinnati over a weekend, pack a bag and come back. It was so fast: the turnaround from the day that I auditioned to the day I made my debut in the ensemble was 10 days! Swing life was such a humbling experience, to be like, “OK, where is your brain today? Which track are we gonna be doing?” And for Life of Pi specifically, it's such a technical show: every fence move has to be in the right spot, every prop move and puppeteering lift. Your foot has to be in the right place because the lift is going be opening up beneath you and it won't open if it's in the wrong spot. So, you have to carry the responsibility of the specificity very quickly – and I had a blast, honestly. I really attribute it to Ashley Brooke Monroe, who was the assistant director at the time and is now the production director for the tour. She and I work together very well; we had a lot of one-on-one time in the room. It was awesome. I learned a lot about how I learn, which is something that I feel like not a lot of people get the privilege of doing.

BWW: So now you're taking the show on tour. What is it like being on tour?

Taha: There’s a lot of different angles, right? There's the show itself: getting to play Pi, which is a dream come true; and getting to do it night after night in all of these different cities. It's a huge honor and one of the greatest blessings of my life in so many ways. And then touring is really cool! My wife is with me for a lot of the tour. She comes and goes, but most of the time she's with me and it's nice. We got married last year, so this is sort of our first big adventure together! Living out of a bunch of suitcases really teaches you to condense to what is important, from every piece of clothing to every little kitchen item: what are the things that we need? What are the things that will bring us joy? It’s a very minimalist lifestyle, but I'm finding this parallel between the show in that the simplest things can often be the most gratifying things. I also love exploring different cities. Right now in Cleveland, I'm staying in the same building as my brother. My older brother has lived here for many, many years: he did his residency here and currently works here. It's the most time that we've gotten to spend together in years! Then, we were just in DC where my in-laws are, so we got to spend time with them. It's a lot of travel and it's exhausting, too. But, life is rife with challenges and it's how we respond to those challenges that sets the tone of how satisfied we are in our day to day. LIFE OF PI is very much like that: how do you make the best out of a less-than-ideal situation? There are definitely challenges, but having my wife around is the best. Period.

BWW: Speaking of LIFE OF PI, how familiar were you with the show prior to being cast? How would you describe the show to those who may not be familiar with the book or film?

Taha: I remember reading the book in early high school. Not as an assignment, but because a friend of mine had told me to read it – but honestly, I didn't remember much about it when I did the show on Broadway. It's only recently that I went back to reread it. The book does a really good job at describing all these minute details of Pi's life – and you get these little animal factoids that are really interesting. There's an interview with Yann (the book’s author) where he talks about how he wanted the book to be educational in some way, about nature and animals with little facts peppered throughout. And then the movie, of course, was its own sort of excitement and exhilaration with CGI tigers! Lolita Chakrabarti, who adapted the book into the play, really just took core elements of what stood out to her from the book, lines that feel like the core foundations of the story, and then organized that in a way that made sense for the stage. So, this is not a one-to-one book-to-stage adaptation.

BWW: How would you describe the stage show?

Taha: I’d have to say, the stage production is a spectacle! That is the best word. That’s why we won the Tony Award for Scenic Design on Broadway. It was for the spectacle of it, right? And the puppetry is astounding. It has my deepest respect in terms of the expression of physical art and physical storytelling. All of the animals in the show are represented by puppets, as well as the storytelling of how objects travel. It could be just detritus from the ship falling off, but these things are puppeteered by humans. I think that gives this really interesting dynamic movement to the show, where everything is crashing in and out, flowing in and out, moved by us as people. So, on one end, you have this beautiful physical craft of the storytelling itself. And then there's the story beneath it, where it's just Pi, a teenage boy who is shipwrecked and doing his best not to die. But there are layers underneath: his journey of faith, his journey of discovering himself. People come see LIFE OF PI and take away so many different things. Some people reflect on their own resilience. They reflect on their family. They reflect on their relationship with their friends that give them courage and give them strength. Sometimes they reflect on the relationship of man versus nature, or man and God – and some of them just leave thinking “that was the coolest puppet show I've ever seen!” [Laughs] I think there's something for everybody in the show and that’s what makes it so special to do.

BWW: And what do you reflect on? What is your favorite moment or that moment that gets you every night?

Taha: It's been changing from night to night. I think right now, it's honestly the very end of the show, the last couple of lines. These are lines taken directly from the book and they’re said in the movie, as well. Pi says, “I've told you two stories that account for the 227 days I was at sea. You can't prove which story is true, but in both stories, the ship sinks, my family dies, and I suffer. So tell me, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story? The story with animals or the story without animals?” And Mr. Okamoto says to him, “The story with animals,” and Pi says, “Yes, thank you. And so it goes with God.” Those last couple of words lately have been making me search and reach for something that is much deeper and bigger than myself. I know that's very abstract, but I think we all have our own relationships with spirit: for some people that's religion; for some people that could be more esoteric. But, I've been really feeling something very deep, those last couple of lines. Now, when I say them, there's something else that is there that has been hard to put into words but has been very, very moving.

BWW: If you could give Pi any advice, what would that be?

Taha: That's a good question. Not to get too cheesy, but I'm thinking of Mufasa: “Remember who you are.” I think that is my advice. He is curious, loving, fierce, witty and mischievous, and all of these things. So I would tell him to remember who you are because, in moments of struggle and challenge, reflecting on the parts of yourself that give you energy and give you vitality and curiosity will be the thing that will carry you through.

To post a comment, you must register and login.