John Lee Beatty Will Receive Ming Cho Lee Award For Lifetime Achievement

Scenic designer John Lee Beatty will be honored with the Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design bestowed by the Henry Hewes Design Awards at the 61st annual ceremony on October 20, at the annual award luncheon in New York. A seven-time honoree of the Hewes Awards for ten productions dating back to Knock, Knock in 1976, Beatty has created more than 115 Broadway designs and more than 140 Off Broadway designs that have made a profound impact on theatre culture across five decades. He has also been honored with two Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards.

“John Lee Beatty is truly one of the legends in theater design,” said Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, chairman of the HHDA committee. “It is with great appreciation for his work and leadership that the Henry Hewes Design Awards committee honors him with the Ming Cho Lee Lifetime Achievement Award.”

John Lee Beatty, started designing scenery at age 8, has designed more than 115 Broadway productions, and been even more prolific Off Broadway and in regional theaters. A union scenic artist as well as designer, he has also taught at 4 colleges, designed 7 restaurants, and worked with the circus. He has been a major designer for Manhattan Theatre Club (70 productions), Circle Repertory Company, and Lincoln Center Theater (28 productions), City Center Encores! (22 seasons), and Shakespeare in Central Park. He designed musicals such as Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Color Purple, and the long-running revival of Chicago. But he is best known for premieres of plays by Lanford Wilson, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Arthur Miller, Beth Henley, Jon Robin Baitz, Terrence McNally, Lynn Nottage, Wendy Wasserstein, David Ives, David Lindsay-Abaire, A.R. Gurney, Brian Friel, David Auburn, John Patrick Shanley, and more. Many of these plays are now classics in the American repertory. A graduate of Brown, and Yale School of Drama, he has received numerous honors from the Henry Hewes Design Awards committee, the Tonys, the Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle, and the Obies. He has been a member of the Theater Hall of Fame since 2003. 

About HHDA:

The HHDA Committee named honorees in six standard categories: Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting Design, Sound Design, Media Design, and Notable Effects. As of the 2025 awards, the Committee has bestowed 357 honors on 243 artists representing 303 productions. (These numbers do not include the Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design.)

Known as the Maharam Awards at their inception in 1965, the Hewes Awards were later renamed the American Theatre Wing Design Awards in honor of the Wing’s generous sponsorship. In 1999, they became the Henry Hewes Design Awards in honor of noted critic Henry Hewes, who created the awards and served as a board member of the American Theatre Wing until his death in 2006 at age 89.

The Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee includes theater critics 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.