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This is a list of the winners of the
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for
Best Lighting Design in a
playA play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
or
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, first presented in 1970. In 2005 the category was divided with each genre represented separately.
1970s
- 1970: Jo Mielziner – Child's Play
Child's Play is a stage play written by Robert Marasco. It opened on Broadway on February 12, 1970 at the Royale Theatre, and ran for 342 performances, closing on December 12, 1970. The production was produced by David Merrick and directed by Joseph Hardy....
ApplauseApplause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical....
- Thomas Skelton - Indians
Indians is a play by Arthur Kopit.At its core is Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show. The play examines the contradictions of Cody's life and his work with Native Americans....
1971: R.H. Poindexter – Paul Sill's Story TheatrePaul Sills' Story Theatre is a play with music, adapted from fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.It opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre on October 26, 1970 and closed on July 3, 1971, after 243 performances and 14 previews. Directed by Paul Sills, it featured Paul Sand, Valerie...
- Robert Ornbo - Company
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
- William Ritman - Sleuth
Sleuth is a 1970 play written by Anthony Shaffer. The play is set in the Wiltshire, England manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. His home reflects Wyke's obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing...
1972: Tharon MusserTharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....
– FolliesFollies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...
Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural DeathAin't Supposed to Die a Natural Death is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Melvin Van Peebles. The musical contains some material also on three of Van Peebles' albums, Br'er Soul, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack, some of which were yet to come...
John Bury - Old TimesOld Times is a play by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London on June 1, 1971. It starred Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin, and Vivien Merchant, and was directed by Peter Hall...
Jules FisherJules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
- Jesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
1973: Jules FisherJules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– PippinPippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...
- Martin Aronstein - Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
- Ian Calderon - That Championship Season
That Championship Season is a 1972 play by Jason Miller. It was the recipient of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Plot synopsis:Characters* The Coach* George Sitkowski* Phil Romano* James Daley* Tom Daley...
- Tharon Musser - A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
1974: Jules FisherJules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– Ulysses in NighttownUlysses in Nighttown is a play based on an episode from the novel Ulysses by James Joyce that was adapted by Marjorie Barkentin and contains incidental music by Peter Link. The show opened Off-Broadway in 1958 with Zero Mostel to a long and successful run, earning Mostel an Obie Award...
Boom Boom Room
Ken Billington - The VisitThe Visit is a 1956 tragicomic play by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt.-Plot summary:...
Ben Edwards - A Moon for the MisbegottenA Moon for the Misbegotten is a play by Eugene O'Neill. The play can be thought of as a sequel to the autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night...
Tharon Musser - The Good Doctor
1975: Neil Peter JampolisNeil Peter Jampolis is a light designer, set designer, and stage director. He is best known for the light designing he did for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s 1975 production of Sherlock Holmes for which he won a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award...
– Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
- Chip Monk - The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...
- Abe Feder - Goodtime Charley
Goodtime Charley is a musical with a book by Sidney Michaels, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.A humorous take on actual historical events, it focuses on the Dauphin of France, who evolves from a hedonistic young man enamored of women in general into a regal king while Joan...
- Andy Phillips - Equus
Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....
- Thomas Skelton - All God's Chillun Got Wings
All God's Chillun Got Wings was a 1924 play by Eugene O'Neill about miscegenation.Paul Robeson performed in the premiere, in which he portrayed the black husband of an abusive white woman who, resenting her husband's skin colour, destroys his promising career as a lawyer.-Performances:Trish Van...
- James Tilton - Seascape
Seascape is a play by American playwright Edward Albee. Directed by Albee himself, the production opened on Broadway on January 26, 1975, at the Sam S. Shubert Theatre, starring Deborah Kerr, Barry Nelson, Maureen Anderman and Frank Langella, who won a Tony Award for his performance as Leslie...
1976: Tharon MusserTharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....
– A Chorus LineA Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....
Trelawny of the Wells
Jules FisherJules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
- ChicagoChicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
Tharon Musser - Pacific OverturesPacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change...
1977: Jennifer TiptonJennifer Tipton is a lighting designer. She has designed for dance, theater and opera.In 1958, she graduated from Cornell University...
– The Cherry OrchardThe Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
- John Bury - No Man's Land
No Man's Land is a play by Harold Pinter written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the Old Vic Theatre in London by the National Theatre on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to Wyndhams Theatre, July 1975 - January 1976, the Lyttelton Theatre...
- Pat Collins - Threepenny Opera
- Neil Peter Jampolis - The Innocents
The Innocents is a 1976 play written by William Archiblad. The show opened at the Morosco Theatre on October 21, 1976 and closed on October 30, 1976 after 12 performances.-Setting:...
1978: Jules FisherJules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– Dancin'Dancin' is a musical revue first produced in 1978, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, who won a Tony Award for the choreography. The show is a tribute to the art of dance, and the music is a collection of mostly American songs, many with a dance theme from a wide variety of styles, from...
- Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
-
BeatlemaniaBeatlemania was a Broadway musical revue focused on the music of The Beatles as it related to the events and changing attitudes of the tumultuous Sixties...
Tharon Musser - The ActThe Act is a musical with a book by George Furth, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.It was written to showcase the talents of Kander and Ebb favorite Liza Minnelli, who portrayed Michelle Craig, a fading film star attempting a comeback as a Las Vegas singer. The thin plot was little more...
Ken Billington - WorkingWorking is a musical with a book by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso, music by Schwartz, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, and James Taylor, and lyrics by Schwartz, Carnelia, Grant, Taylor, and Susan Birkenhead....
1979: Roger MorganRoger Morgan is an award winning American light designer. He has designed the lighting for more than 30 productions on Broadway including The Visit, Mort Sahl on Broadway!, Me and My Girl, The Octette Bridge Club, Agnes of God, I Remember Mama, First Monday in October, It Had to Be You, Dracula,...
– The Crucifer of BloodThe Crucifer of Blood is a play by Paul Giovanni that is adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story The Sign of the Four. It depicts the character Irene St...
- Ken Billington - Sweeney Todd
- Beverly Emmons - The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man is a 1977 play by Bernard Pomerance. The production's Broadway debut in 1979 was produced by Richmond Crinkley and Nelle Nugent, and directed by Jack Hofsiss...
- Tharon Musser - Ballroom
Ballroom is a musical with a book by Jerome Kass and music by Billy Goldenberg and lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.Based on Kass' teleplay for the 1975 Emmy Award-winning television drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, the plot focuses on lonely widow Bea Asher, who becomes romantically...
1980s
- 1980: David Hersey
David Hersey is a lighting designer who has designed the lighting for over 250 plays, musicals, operas, and ballets. His work has been seen in most corners of the globe and his many awards include the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Evita, Cats, and Les Misérables, the Drama Desk Award for...
– Evita
A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine
- Craig Miller - Barnum
Barnum is a musical with a book by Mark Bramble, lyrics by Michael Stewart, and music by Cy Coleman. It is based on the life of showman P. T. Barnum, covering the period from 1835 through 1880 in America and major cities of the world where Barnum took his performing companies. The production...
- Dennis Parichy - Talley's Folly
Talley's Folly is a 1979 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson, the second in his cycle, The Talley Trilogy between his plays Talley & Son and Fifth of July. Set in an old boathouse near rural Lebanon, Missouri in 1944, it is a romantic comedy following the characters Matt Friedman and Sally...
1981: John BuryJohn Bury was a British set designer, costume designer and lighting designer who designed in theatre in the UK, West End and Broadway and international opera. He had a long creative relationship with director Peter Hall...
– AmadeusAmadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
- Tharon Musser - 42nd Street
42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...
- Dennis Parichy - Fifth of July
Fifth of July is a 1978 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson. Set in rural Missouri in 1977, it revolves around the Talley family and their friends, and focuses on the disillusionment with America in the wake of the Vietnam War...
- Jennifer Tipton - Sophisticated Ladies
Sophisticated Ladies is a musical revue based on the music of Duke Ellington.After fifteen previews, the Broadway production, conceived by Donald McKayle, directed by Michael Smuin, and choreographed by McKayle, Smuin, Henry LeTang, Bruce Heath, and Mercedes Ellington, opened on March 1, 1981 at...
1982: Tharon MusserTharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....
– Dreamgirls
MedeaMedea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
David Hersey - The Life and Adventures of Nicholas NicklebyThe Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an eight-hour stage play, presented over two performances, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel of the same name by David Edgar. Directed by John Caird and Trevor Nunn, it opened on 5 June 1980 at the Aldwych Theatre in London. The music and lyrics...
Marcia Madeira - NineNine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
1983: David HerseyDavid Hersey is a lighting designer who has designed the lighting for over 250 plays, musicals, operas, and ballets. His work has been seen in most corners of the globe and his many awards include the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Evita, Cats, and Les Misérables, the Drama Desk Award for...
– CatsCats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
- Ken Billington - Foxfire
Foxfire is a play by Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn based on the Foxfire books, about Appalachian culture and traditions in north Georgia. The 1982 Broadway production starred Jessica Tandy, who won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play...
- Robert Bryan - All's Well That Ends Well
All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1604 and 1605, and was originally published in the First Folio in 1623....
- Allen Lee Hughes - K2
1984: Richard NelsonRichard Nelson was an American theatrical lighting designer.Born in New York City, Nelson studied at the High School of the Performing Arts and began his career off-Broadway in 1955. He made his Broadway debut with The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1966...
– Sunday in the Park with GeorgeSunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
End of the World
Jules Fisher - La Cage aux Folles
Marc B. Weiss - A Moon for the MisbegottenA Moon for the Misbegotten is a play by Eugene O'Neill. The play can be thought of as a sequel to the autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night...
1985: Richard RiddellRichard V. Riddell is an American lighting designer.He graduated from Knox College with a B.A. with honors in 1972. In 1978, he received his doctorate from Stanford University....
– Big RiverBig River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a musical with a book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller.Based on Mark Twain's classic 1884 novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it features music in the bluegrass and country styles in keeping with the setting of the novel...
- Terry Hands - Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
- Terry Hands - Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
- Allen Lee Hughes - Strange Interlude
Strange Interlude is an experimental play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill finished the play in 1923, but it was not produced on Broadway until 1928, when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lynn Fontanne originated the central role of Nina Leeds on Broadway...
1986: Pat CollinsPat Collins is an American lighting designer.Collins made her Broadway debut with a 1976 revival of Threepenny Opera. Her additional New York City credits include Ain't Misbehavin, King of Hearts, I'm Not Rappaport, Execution of Justice, The Heidi Chronicles, Conversations with My Father, The...
– I'm Not RappaportI'm Not Rappaport is a play by Herb Gardner originally staged by Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1984. Its Broadway debut production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, starring Judd Hirsch, Cleavon Little, Jace Alexander, and Mercedes Ruehl, opened on November 19, 1985 at the Booth Theatre, where it ran...
Song & Dance
Paul Gallo - The House of Blue LeavesThe House of Blue Leaves is a play by American playwright John Guare, first staged in 1966 by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut....
Thomas R. Skelton - The Iceman ComethThe Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...
1987: David HerseyDavid Hersey is a lighting designer who has designed the lighting for over 250 plays, musicals, operas, and ballets. His work has been seen in most corners of the globe and his many awards include the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Evita, Cats, and Les Misérables, the Drama Desk Award for...
– Les MisérablesLes Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
- Martin Aronstein - Wild Honey
Wild Honey is a 1984 adaptation by British playwright Michael Frayn of an earlier play by Anton Chekhov. The original work, a sprawling five-hour drama from Chekhov's earliest years as a writer, has no title but it is usually known in English as Platonov, from its principal character "Mikhail...
- David Hersey - Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Richard Stilgoe and Arlene Phillips , with later revisions by Don Black and David Yazbek . The story follows a child's dream in which his toy train set comes to life; famously the actors perform wearing roller skates...
- Beverly Emmons and Chris Parry - Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....
1988: Andrew Bridge – The Phantom of the OperaThe Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
Anything GoesAnything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
Richard Nelson - Into the WoodsInto the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
Andy Phillips - M. ButterflyM. Butterfly is a 1988 play by David Henry Hwang loosely based on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer....
1989: Jennifer TiptonJennifer Tipton is a lighting designer. She has designed for dance, theater and opera.In 1958, she graduated from Cornell University...
– Jerome Robbins' BroadwayJerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....
- Neil Peter Jampolis and Jane Reisman - Black and Blue
Black and Blue is a musical revue celebrating the black culture of dance and music in Paris between World War I and World War II.Based on an idea by Mel Howard and conceived by Hector Orezzoli and Claudio Segovia, it consists of songs by artists such as W. C...
- Brian Nason - Metamorphosis
- Nancy Schertler - Largely New York
1990s
- 1990: Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– Grand HotelGrand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
- 1991: Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– The Will Rogers Follies
- 1992: Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
– Jelly's Last JamJelly's Last Jam is a musical with a book by George C. Wolfe, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jelly Roll Morton and Luther Henderson...
- 1993: Chris Parry – The Who's Tommy
The Who's Tommy is a rock musical by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff based on The Who's 1969 double album rock opera Tommy, also by Pete Townshend, with additional material by John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Sonny Boy Williamson.-Productions:...
- 1994: Rick Fisher
Rick Fisher is a lighting designer, known for his work with Stephen Daldry on Billy Elliot the Musical and An Inspector Calls. He is from Philadelphia and attended Dickinson College, but has been based in the UK for the last 30 years....
– An Inspector CallsAn Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 in the Soviet Union and 1946 in the UK. It is considered to be one of Priestley's best known works for the stage and one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre...
- 1995: Andrew Bridge – Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
- 1996: Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
/ Peggy EisenhauerPeggy Eisenhauer is an American lighting designer for both theatre and films. She has designed more than twenty Broadway shows and frequently collaborates with Jules Fisher.-Career:...
– Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da FunkBring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk is a musical that debuted Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in 1995 and moved to Broadway in 1996. The show was conceived and directed by George C. Wolfe, and featured music by Daryl Waters, Zane Mark and Ann Duquesnay; lyrics by...
- 1997: Ken Billington
Ken Billington is an American lighting designer. He began his career in New York City working as an assistant to Tharon Musser....
– ChicagoChicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
- 1998: Donald Holder
Donald Holder is an American lighting designer in theatre, opera, and dance based in New York. He has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning the 1998 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lion King. He won a second Tony in...
– The Lion KingThe Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
- 1999: Andrew Bridge – Fosse
Fosse is a three-act musical revue showcasing the choreography of Bob Fosse. After 21 previews, the original Broadway production, conceived and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr...
2000s
- 2000: Natasha Katz
Natasha Katz is a lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera. She was educated at Oberlin College and did an internship with Roger Morgan....
– AidaAida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
- 2001: Peter Kaczorowski
Peter Kaczorowski in Buffalo, New York is a lighting designer. He is credited with lighting designs for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in opera. He has been nominated three times for Tony Awards and won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for The Producers and the...
– The ProducersThe Producers is a musical adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks' 1968 film of the same name, with lyrics written by Brooks and music composed by Brooks and arranged by Glen Kelly and Doug Besterman. As in the film, the story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich...
- 2002: Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
– Into the WoodsInto the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
- 2003: Nigel Levings
Nigel Levings is an Australian stage lighting designer. He has designed lights for over 400 productions. He works extensively on operas, and has designed a large portion of Opera Australia's repertoire...
– La BohemeLa bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
- 2004: Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher is a lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 200 productions over the course of his 45 year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours...
and Peggy EisenhauerPeggy Eisenhauer is an American lighting designer for both theatre and films. She has designed more than twenty Broadway shows and frequently collaborates with Jules Fisher.-Career:...
– AssassinsAssassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted to assassinate Presidents of the United States...
Best Lighting Design in a Play
- 2005: Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
– The PillowmanThe Pillowman is a 2003 play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. It received its first public reading in an early version at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 1995...
- Pat Collins - Doubt
- Donald Holder - Gem of the Ocean
Gem of the Ocean is a play by American playwright August Wilson. It is the first installment of his decade-by-decade, ten-play chronicle, The Pittsburgh Cycle, dramatizing the African-American experience in the twentieth century.-Plot :...
- Donald Holder - A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
- 2006: Mark Henderson – The History Boys
The History Boys is a play by British playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Lyttelton Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where there were 185 performances staged before it closed on 1 October 2006.The play won multiple...
- Christopher Akerlind - Awake and Sing!
Awake and Sing! is a drama written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.-Summary and characters:...
- Paul Gallo - Three Days of Rain
Three Days of Rain is a play by Richard Greenberg that was commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory in 1997. The title comes from a line from W. S. Merwin's poem, "For the Anniversary of My Death"...
- Mark Henderson - Faith Healer
Faith Healer is a play by Brian Friel about the life of faith healer Francis Hardy as monologued through the shifting memories of Hardy, his wife, Grace, and stage manager, Teddy.-Synopsis:...
- 2007: Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
, Kenneth PosnerKenneth Posner is an American theatrical lighting designer, working on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in American regional theatre. His most notable designs include the musicals Wicked and Hairspray, two highly regarded musicals of the early 21st century...
and Natasha KatzNatasha Katz is a lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera. She was educated at Oberlin College and did an internship with Roger Morgan....
– The Coast of UtopiaThe Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866...
- Paule Constable - Coram Boy
Coram Boy is a play written by Helen Edmundson with music composed by Adrian Sutton, based on the 2000 children's novel of the same name by Jamila Gavin, an epic adventure that concerns the theme of child cruelty...
- Brian MacDevitt - Inherit the Wind
Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials.-Background:...
- Jason Taylor - Journey's End
Journey's End is a 1928 drama, the seventh of English playwright R. C. Sherriff. It was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London by the Incorporated Stage Society on 9 December 1928, starring a young Laurence Olivier, and soon moved to other West End theatres for a two-year run...
- 2008: Kevin Adams
For the NHL player, see Kevyn Adams.Kevin Adams is an American theatrical lighting designer. He has earned three Tony Awards for lighting design.-Biography:...
- The 39 StepsThe 39 Steps is a farce adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. Patrick Barlow wrote the adaptation, based on the original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon of a two-actor version of the play...
- Howard Harrison - Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
- Donald Holder - Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les liaisons dangereuses is a play by Christopher Hampton adapted from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The plot focuses on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation, all the while enjoying their...
- Ann G. Wrightson - August: Osage County
August: Osage County is a darkly comedic play by Tracy Letts. It was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on 28 June 2007, and closed on 26 August 2007. Its Broadway debut was at the Imperial Theater on 4 December 2007 and...
- 2009: Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
- Joe Turner's Come and GoneJoe Turner's Come and Gone is a play by American playwright, August Wilson, the second installment of his decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience, The Pittsburgh Cycle...
- David Hersey - Equus
Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....
- David Lander - 33 Variations
33 Variations is a play by Moisés Kaufman, inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's eponymous work. It débuted on Broadway on March 9, 2009, starring Jane Fonda...
- Hugh Vanstone - Mary Stuart
Best Lighting Design in a Musical
- 2005: Christopher Akerlind
Christopher Akerlind is an American lighting designer for theatre, opera, and dance. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Light in the Piazza and an Obie Award for sustained excellence for his work Off-Broadway.He attended...
– The Light in the Piazza
- Mark Henderson - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also known as Chitty the Musical, is a stage musical based on the 1968 film produced by Cubby Broccoli. The music and lyrics were written by Richard and Robert Sherman with book by Jeremy Sams.-Productions:...
- Kenneth Posner - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book by Jeffrey Lane; it is based on the film of the same name...
- Hugh Vanstone - Monty Python's Spamalot
- 2006: Howell Binkley
Howell Binkley is a professional lighting designer in New York City. He received the 2006 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a musical for Jersey Boys....
– Jersey BoysJersey Boys is a jukebox musical with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. It is a documentary-style musical, based on one of the most successful 1960s rock 'n roll groups, the Four Seasons...
- Ken Billington and Brian Monahan - The Drowsy Chaperone
The Drowsy Chaperone is a musical with book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison. It debuted in 1998 at The Rivoli in Toronto and opened on Broadway on 1 May 2006. The show won the Tony Award for Best Book and Best Score. It started as a spoof of old...
- Natasha Katz - Tarzan
Tarzan: The Musical is based on the Disney film of the same name and the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Music and lyrics are written by Phil Collins, with a book by David Henry Hwang.-Production:...
- Brian MacDevitt - The Color Purple
The Color Purple is a Broadway musical based upon the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It features music and lyrics written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, with a book by Marsha Norman. It ran on Broadway in 2005 and has been touring throughout the US...
- 2007: Kevin Adams
For the NHL player, see Kevyn Adams.Kevin Adams is an American theatrical lighting designer. He has earned three Tony Awards for lighting design.-Biography:...
– Spring Awakening
- Christopher Akerlind - 110 in the Shade
110 in the Shade is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Tom Jones, and music by Harvey Schmidt.Based on Nash's 1954 play The Rainmaker, it focuses on Lizzie Curry, a spinster living on a ranch in the American southwest, and her relationships with local sheriff File, a cautious...
- Howard Harrison - Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins is a Walt Disney Theatrical musical based on the similarly titled series of children's books by P. L. Travers and the Disney 1964 film. The West End production opened in December 2004 and received two Olivier Awards, one for Best Actress in a Musical and the other for Best Theatre...
- Peter Kaczorowski - Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is an American musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were...
- 2008: Donald Holder
Donald Holder is an American lighting designer in theatre, opera, and dance based in New York. He has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning the 1998 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lion King. He won a second Tony in...
- South PacificSouth Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
- Ken Billington - Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
- Howell Binkley - In the Heights
In the Heights is a musical with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. The story explores three days in the characters' lives in the New York City Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights....
- Natasha Katz - The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid is a stage musical produced by Disney Theatrical, based on the animated 1989 Disney film of the same name and the classic story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen...
- 2009: Rick Fisher
Rick Fisher is a lighting designer, known for his work with Stephen Daldry on Billy Elliot the Musical and An Inspector Calls. He is from Philadelphia and attended Dickinson College, but has been based in the UK for the last 30 years....
- Billy Elliot the MusicalBilly Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is by Sir Elton John, and book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around motherless Billy, who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes...
- Kevin Adams - Hair
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
- Kevin Adams - Next to Normal
- Howell Binkley - West Side Story
2010s
Best Lighting Design in a Play
- 2010: Neil Austin - Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
- Mark Henderson - Enron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with...
- Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
- FencesFences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson's ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle. Like all of the Pittsburgh plays, Fences explores the evolving African-American experience and examines race relations, among other themes...
- 2011: Paule Constable
Paule Constable is a British lighting designer who won the 2005, 2006, and 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design. She was also a nominee for four further productions and for a 2007 Tony Award on Broadway...
- War HorseWar Horse is a play based on the book of the same name by acclaimed children's writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted for stage by Nick Stafford. Originally Morpurgo thought "they must be mad" to try to make a play from his best-selling 1982 novel. He was proved wrong by the play's instant success...
- David Lander
David L. Lander is an American actor, comedian, composer, musician, and baseball scout. David is also the Goodwill Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.- Biography :...
- Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad ZooBengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is a play by Rajiv Joseph. The show is about "a tiger that haunts the streets of present day Baghdad seeking the meaning of life. As he witnesses the puzzling absurdities of war, the tiger encounters Americans and Iraqis who are searching for friendship, redemption,...
- Kenneth Posner
Kenneth Posner is an American theatrical lighting designer, working on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in American regional theatre. His most notable designs include the musicals Wicked and Hairspray, two highly regarded musicals of the early 21st century...
- The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
- Mimi Jordan Sherin - Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a play by Jez Butterworth that opened at the downstairs theatre of the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2009. The production starred Mark Rylance as Johnny 'Rooster' Byron and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger. After receiving rave reviews its run was extended. In January 2010 it transferred...
Best Lighting Design in a Musical
- 2010: Kevin Adams
For the NHL player, see Kevyn Adams.Kevin Adams is an American theatrical lighting designer. He has earned three Tony Awards for lighting design.-Biography:...
- American IdiotAmerican Idiot is a one-act, through-sung stage musical. The show is an adaptation of punk rock band Green Day's concept album of the same name. Additional Green Day songs were interpolated from other sources, including 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot b-sides, and an unreleased song called...
- Donald Holder
Donald Holder is an American lighting designer in theatre, opera, and dance based in New York. He has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning the 1998 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lion King. He won a second Tony in...
- RagtimeRagtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
- Nick Richings - La Cage aux Folles
La Cage aux Folles is a musical with a book by Harvey Fierstein and lyrics and music by Jerry Herman. Based on the 1973 French play of the same name by Jean Poiret, it focuses on a gay couple: Georges, the manager of a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, and Albin, his romantic...
- Robert Wierzel
Robert Wierzel is an American lighting designer.Mr. Wierzel is well known for his work in the American regional theatre, with national and international opera companies, museum installations, and dance. For twenty-three years he has been a collaborator with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance...
- Fela!Fela! is a musical with a book by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis, based on music and lyrics by the late Nigerian singer Fela Kuti, with additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan Mclean and additional lyrics by Jim Lewis. It is based on events in the life of groundbreaking Nigerian composer and...
- 2011: Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer for theatrical productions. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions....
- The Book of Mormon
- Ken Billington
Ken Billington is an American lighting designer. He began his career in New York City working as an assistant to Tharon Musser....
- The Scottsboro BoysThe Scottsboro Boys is a musical with a book by David Thompson, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. Based on the Scottsboro Boys trial, the musical is one of the last collaborations between Kander and Ebb prior to the latter's death...
- Howell Binkley
Howell Binkley is a professional lighting designer in New York City. He received the 2006 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a musical for Jersey Boys....
- How to Succeed in Business Without Really TryingHow to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on Shepherd Mead's 1952 book of the same name....
- Peter Kaczorowski
Peter Kaczorowski in Buffalo, New York is a lighting designer. He is credited with lighting designs for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive work in opera. He has been nominated three times for Tony Awards and won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for The Producers and the...
- Anything GoesAnything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
External links