The theatre company Toneelgroep Amsterdam debuted Koen Tachelet's adaptation of A Little Life on 23 September 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Ivo van Hove directed the adaptation, which had a run time of over four hours.[33] Van Hove collaborated with Yanagihara on the script after being given copies of the novel by two friends.[34] Ramsey Nasr played the lead Jude St. Francis in the adaptation, which received generally positive reviews.[35] Theatre critic Matt Trueman wrote that, despite the play's sometime suffocating trauma and violence, it "is van Hove at his best, theatre that leaves an ineradicable mark".[36] The Dutch-language production with English subtitles was shown at the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival,[37] in October 2022 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,[38] and in March 2023 at the Adelaide Festival.[39]
In August 2020, the theatre company Liver & Lung presented an unofficial musical adaptation of A Little Life in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[40] Seven songs from the album were released on Spotify on 7 January 2022, to celebrate the release of Yanagihara's new novel, To Paradise.[41]
An English-language version of Tachelet's stage adaptation premiered on 14 March 2023 at the Richmond Theatre in South West London, followed by a West End run at the Harold Pinter Theatre and the Savoy Theatre.[42][43] This theatre adaptation was filmed while being performed at the Savoy Theatre, and was released to cinema for a limited time on 28 September 2023.[44]
