David Henry Hwang To Receive Dramatist Guild Lifetime Achievement Award

The Dramatists Guild of America has announced that the recipient of its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award is playwright David Henry Hwang (Yellow Face, M. Butterfly). The award will be presented at the Guild’s annual awards ceremony on Monday, April 28. 

The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented by the Dramatists Guild Council in recognition of distinguished lifetime achievement in theatrical writing. Previous recipients include Terrence McNally, Sheldon Harnick & Jerry Bock, Lanford Wilson, Gretchen Cryer & Nancy Ford, Jules Feiffer, Tina Howe, Pearl Cleage, Christopher Durang, Adrienne Kennedy, A.R. Gurney, John Guare, Emily Mann, George C Wolfe, Micki Grant, Paula Vogel, Joseph Stein, Horton Foote, August Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Neil Simon, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller. Career Achievement Awards have also been presented to Marsha Norman and Stephen Schwartz.  

 "Over the last four and a half decades, David's ever-increasing body of work endures as one of the great contributions to the American theatre canon”, says Samuel D Hunter, co-chair of the awards committee. “I couldn't be more thrilled that we are celebrating David with the Guild's highest honor. His generosity, grace, humor, craft and deep intelligence has profoundly influenced entire generations of theatre artists, myself included. I'm thrilled to see what lies ahead for him."

Adds Council Treasurer Christine Toy Johnson, “David Henry Hwang continues to give us a window of understanding into ourselves through his brilliant and insightful storytelling, his bold and searingly honest characters, and his endless generosity in the form of mentorship and service to playwrights. I’m thrilled that we are honoring him in this way, for in fact his lifetime of achievements so far honor all of us.”

David Henry Hwang, most recently represented on Broadway with the critically acclaimed revival of Yellow Face starring Daniel Dae Kim, is a Tony, Grammy and three-time OBIE Award winner, as well as a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. His stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Aida, Flower Drum Song, Disney’s Tarzan, and Soft Power. Hwang is currently working on the new musical Particle Fever, based on the 2013 documentary about the largest scientific experiment ever undertaken.

Hwang has written fourteen opera libretti, with Opera News calling him America’s most-produced living opera librettist. Recent premieres include Ainadamar, An American Soldier, Circus Days and Nights, The Rift, and M. Butterfly. His new opera, The Monkey King, will receive its World Premiere at San Francisco Opera this fall. He also co-wrote the Gold Record Solo in 1994 with the late pop star Prince.  From 2015-2019, Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair. His screenplays include Possession, M. Butterfly, and Golden Gate.

Recent honors include his 2022 induction onto the Lucille Lortel Playwrights Sidewalk, an Honorary Doctorate (his seventh) from California State University in 2022, his 2021 election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and his 2018 induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Hwang has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1979 and also serves on the Council of the Guild. He is a Trustee of the American Theatre Wing, which he Chaired from 2016-2021.  

​The Dramatists Guild’s other awards, including the Hull-Warriner, Loewe, Horton Foote, Lanford Wilson, Flora Roberts, and DLDF Defender awards will be announced at a later date.