<Tr> <Th> Productions </Th> <Td> 2012 Off - Broadway 2014 Quito 2015 Cambridge 2016 Broadway </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Awards </Th> <Td> Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater </Td> </Tr> <P> Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is a sung - through musical adaptation of a segment of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace written by composer / lyricist Dave Malloy and directed by Rachel Chavkin . It is based on Volume 2, Part 5 of Tolstoy's novel, focusing on Natasha's affair with Anatole and Pierre's search for meaning in his life . </P> <P> After its original run at the Ars Nova in 2012, a staging in both the Meatpacking District and the Theater District of Manhattan in 2013, a 2014 Spanish - language staging in Quito, Ecuador, and a remounting at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2015, the musical premiered on Broadway in November 2016 at the Imperial Theatre . </P>

What is the great comet of 1812 based on