62nd Annual Henry Hewes Design Awards announced, celebration scheduled for October 19, 2026

62nd Annual Henry Hewes Design Awards announced, celebration scheduled for October 19, 2026

NEW YORK — The Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee has announced the 2026 Henry Hewes Design Awards Honorees who will be recognized at the 62nd annual ceremony on October 19, 2026 in New York.

The 2026 Awards recognize artistry on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway stages for the 2025–2026 season (measured by the Awards as June 1, 2025 through May 31, 2026).

Henry Hewes Design Awards 2026 honorees include: scenic designer Dane Laffrey for Broadway’s The Lost Boys; costume designer Brenda Abbandandolo for Clubbed Thumb, MCC, and Page 73’s Cold War Choir Practice; lighting designer Masha Tsimring for Cold War Choir Practice and Signature Theatre’s Animal Wisdom; sound designer Mikhail Fiksel for Audible’s Mexodus; media designer Kameron Neal for Playwright Horizon’s Rheology; and the production design team of Christopher Darbassie, Emmanuel Delgado, Sam Levy, Monkey Boys Productions, Tommaso Ortino, Muriel Parra, Lia Ouyang Rusli, André Azevedo Sweet, and Julio Torres for Color Theories presented at Performance Space New York.

Twelve of the fifteen 2026 honorees are receiving their first award from the Hewes committee. For the 2026 honors, 114 theater theater artists were nominated for outstanding artistry in 63 productions presented during the 2025–26 New York theater season on, Off, and Off-Off Broadway.

These annual awards honor designers for work in venues on Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway, recognizing the categories of Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting Design, Sound Design, Media Design, and Notable Effects. All nominated designs must have originated in United States productions. The Hewes Awards Committee annually considers approximately 200 productions when making its nominations.

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

Additional coverage:

September 10, 2026 Broadway World (Chloe Rabinowitz)

– Submitted by Martha Wade Steketee.