Let’s Talk About Character with Lolita Chakrabarti

Tue 27 May 2025

Written by Lolita Chakrabarti

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How do you build a character for a play? Where do you start? How does that character change within a piece and can you plan for that? What happens when two or more characters interact? Lolita Chakrabarti will talk about her own writing and acting process, suggest some writing exercises to do in the room, look at the scale of work needed to tell a story and answer any questions you may have.

Dates: Tuesday 27 May 2025

Time: 7pm – 9:30pm

Running time of workshop: 2.5 hours – delivered in-person at the 503Studio. Maximum class sizes are 16. A portion of spaces have been reserved for Share the Drama places.

This session will be taking place at the 503Studio in London, which is currently an open plan space that is still in development but you will have access to wifi, tables and chairs. The space is fully wheelchair accessible.

Thanks to our Share The Drama scheme, we want to make sure those of you who are struggling in the current climate can still take part in our Writers Programme. If you would like to book a Share The Drama place for the Writer’s Programme, please call our box office on 02079787040.

If you have any access requirements, you can let us know by contacting filling out the Google Form linked here or contacting Theatre503 via our Writers’ Programme email, writersprogramme@theatre503.com or by calling 02079787040. You can view what we currently are able to offer on our Accessibility page.

Lolita Chakrabarti

Lolita Chakrabarti OBE is an actress and award-winning playwright. She trained at RADA and has been on stages and screens for 35 years. Writing credits include her adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, which won 5 Olivier Awards, including one for Best Play, and went to Broadway in March 2023, where it won 3 Tony Awards. Lolita adapted Hamnet, from the best-selling novel by Maggie O'Farrell, which opened for a sold-out run at the RSC, before transferring to London’s West End. Her original play Hymn opened at the Almeida Theatre in 2021, it was also live streamed and will have its US Premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in Spring 2025. Her debut play Red Velvet opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, before transferring to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York and to London’s West End. It earned her the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright 2012; The Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright 2013; AWA for Arts and Culture 2013 and an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre 2012, as well as many other nominations. Lolita adapted Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities for Manchester International Festival and Brisbane Festival, in collaboration with Rambert, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and 59 Productions. Lolita curated The Greatest Wealth (Old Vic), commissioning eight new monologues to celebrate the NHS. She also dramaturged Sylvia (Old Vic) and Message in a Bottle (Peacock Theatre/US tour) for Kate Prince. Her extensive acting credits include Summer 1954 (Theater Royal Bath and UK tour), The Hunt (Almeida at St Ann’s Warehouse), Gertrude, opposite Tom Hiddleston, in Sir Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (RADA), Last Seen - Joy (Almeida Theatre), which she also wrote, Free Outgoing (Royal Court), John Gabriel Borkman (Donmar), and TV shows Silo, Screw, Vigil, Showtrial, Wheel of Time, A Casual Vacancy, Criminal, Delicious, Forty Something, and The Bill.