Allen Lee Hughes

Lighting Design Icon Allen Lee Hughes Honored with 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award

The LIT Lighting Design Awards are widely known for recognizing outstanding achievements and advancements in lighting design. They showcase and celebrate professionals whose work has significantly influenced and shaped the industry, giving them a platform that supports the artists and the lighting design community as a whole. Each year, the Lifetime Achievement Award honors an individual who has made immeasurable contributions to the field over the years with exceptional technical skills and visionary design. In 2024, the award will be given to Allen Lee Hughes, a lighting designer whose work in theatre, opera, and dance has profoundly impacted the lighting design world for over five decades.

Allen Lee Hughes, born in Washington, D.C., developed an early passion for theatre. He discovered his love for lighting and stage design while studying at the Catholic University of America, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree. He later pursued a Master’s in Fine Arts at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, specializing in Design for Stage and Film. Hughes eventually joined the Tisch faculty, where he continues to teach and mentor aspiring designers. His dedication to education was recognized in 2016 when he received the David Payne Carter Award for Teaching Excellence.

Hughes’ professional career began in regional theatres across the U.S. Eventually, it brought him to New York, where he worked at prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center Theater and Playwrights Horizons before making his mark on Broadway. Since 1983, Hughes has designed lighting for twelve Broadway shows, including the original production of Once on This Island in 1990, which earned him a Tony Award nomination. His lighting for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2012) and A Soldier’s Play (2020) also garnered Tony nominations. Other notable accolades include the Joseph Maharam Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for his work on K2. Hughes’ lighting often combines technical precision with a deep sense of thematic storytelling, as seen in A Soldier’s Play, where his lighting helps convey complex themes of racial identity and conflict without overshadowing the actors’ performances. His Broadway portfolio also includes Home, Our Town, Clybourne Park, Mule Bone, Strange Interlude, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and Quilters.

Beyond Broadway, Hughes’ lighting designs have graced some of the most respected companies in the world, including the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the National Ballet of Canada, as well as the Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Eliot Feld. His work extends to theatres across the U.S., including the McCarter Theatre, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Hartford Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and the Alliance Theatre.

In 1990, Zelda Fichandler, founding director of Arena Stage, established the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship and Internship Program in his honor. This initiative promotes diversity in the theatre industry by offering mentorship and training to underrepresented individuals. Over the years, the fellowship has mentored more than 700 emerging professionals, contributing significantly to a more inclusive industry.

Hughes’ achievements have been recognized by numerous awards, including the USITT Distinguished Achievement Award in Lighting Design (2003), the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration (1997), and the National Black Theatre Festival’s Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design Award (2015). In 2020, he was honored as the second-ever recipient of the Henry Hewes Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement, joining an exclusive group of lighting design legends.

“Thank you so much for this LIT Awards lifetime achievement award. It is great to have recognition for some fifty-six years of professional work. The award means a great deal to me and all of my many collaborators. Over the years, I have attempted to help tell hundreds of stories through my work as a lighting designer. There is a glorious feeling when we are rewarded with an audience that reaps pleasure and knowledge from our work. I appreciate you giving the efforts public attention.”

– Allen Lee Hughes

The LIT Lighting Design Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award is a fitting tribute to Allen Lee Hughes, a designer whose career has been marked by exceptional contributions to the lighting design industry. With four Tony Award nominations, two Helen Hayes Award wins, and a vast body of work spanning theatre, opera, and dance, Hughes has helped shape modern lighting design and created moments of magic that have moved and inspired audiences worldwide. His passion for lighting design and his commitment to the art form make him an iconic figure in the industry. Ensuring such talent receives the recognition it deserves is precisely the mission of the LIT Lighting Design Awards.

Photo: OHIO STATE MURDERS by Adrienne Kennedy; directed by Kenny Leon With Audra McDonald Bryce Pinkham Mister Fitzgerald Lizan Mitchell Abigail Stephenson Dress rehearsal photographed: Thursday, November 10, 2022; at James Earl Jones Theatre ; Photograph: © 2022 Richard Termine. PHOTO CREDIT – Richard Termine