61th Annual Henry Hewes Design Awards announced, celebration scheduled for October 20, 2025

61th Annual Henry Hewes Design Awards announced, celebration scheduled for October 20, 2025

NEW YORK — The Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee has announced the 2025 Henry Hewes Design Awards Honorees who will be recognized at the 61th annual ceremony on October 20, 2025 in New York.

The 2025 Awards recognize artistry on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway stages for the 2024–2025 season (measured by the Awards as June 1, 2024 through May 31, 2025).

Henry Hewes Design Awards honorees include: scenic design team Jason Sherwood for Signature Theatre Company’s Broadway’s Bad Kreyòl; costume designer Qween Jean for PAC NYC’s Cats: ‘The Jellicle Ball;’ lighting designer Adam Honoré for PAC NYC’s Cats: ‘The Jellicle Ball;’ sound designer Rena Anakwe for Theatre for a New Audience’s The Swamp Dwellers; media designer Finn Ross for Broadway’s Boop! The Musical; and puppetry designer Greg Corbino for Soho Rep’s Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!.

The Hewes Committee also voted to award two special citations. The Broadway design team of Maybe Happy Ending (Dane Laffrey, Clint Ramos, Ben Stanton, Peter Hylenski, George Reeve, Craig Franklin Miller, and Suki Tsujimoto) will receive citations for Excellence in Design. Designer Nikiya Mathis (the 2024 awardee for hair and wig design in Broadway’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding) will receive a special citation for Individual Achievement in Design for extraordinary contributions to hair and wig design in Cats” ‘The Jellicle Ball,’ Liberation, and Wine in the Wilderness.

Twelve of the fourteen 2025 honorees are receiving their first award from the Hewes committee. For the 2025 honors, 107 theater theater artists were nominated for outstanding artistry in 54 productions presented during the 2024–25 New York theater season on, Off, and Off-Off Broadway.

The Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee includes theater critics chair Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, chair; David Barbour; David Cote; Naveen Kumar; Brittani Samuel; Helen Shaw; and Martha Wade Steketee. The awards are sponsored by the Henry Hewes Foundation for the Theater Arts.

Additional coverage:

September 4, 2025 Playbill (Margaret Hall)
September 4, 2025 Broadway World (Josh Sharpe)

– Submitted by Martha Wade Steketee..