Brian MacDevitt

Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer and educator. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for his work on the 2002 Broadway revival of Into The Woods. He also won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Play three times and the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Musical twice, most recently in 2024 for The Outsiders.

Early life and education A Long Island, New York, native, MacDevitt went to Ward Melville High School in East Setauket. Afterwards, he attended SUNY Purchase and graduated with a degree in Lighting Design from the Department of Design/Technology of the Division of Theatre Arts & Film.

Career After graduation MacDevitt spent a decade honing his craft with Off Broadway and other productions, and also developed a reputation as a teacher of design. He began teaching at Purchase as a visiting professor in 1986. He continued to balance his teaching career while breaking into Broadway in 1994 with What's Wrong With This Picture? MacDevitt started to achieve notice with the Terrence McNally play Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1995. His success continued through the 1990s, and eventually culminated with a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in 2002 for the revival of Into the Woods. He won again in 2005 for The Pillowman, in 2007 for The Coast of Utopia, sharing the award with Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz (The three also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Utopia.)

In fall of 2009, MacDevitt began working as an Associate Professor of lighting design at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is still teaching. He also designed the revival of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound and David Mamet's new play Race. In the 2010 season he designed A Behanding in Spokane, Fences, Armida at The Metropolitan Opera, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In 2011 he designed The Book of Mormon, Le comte Ory at The Metropolitan Opera and The House of Blue Leaves. MacDevitt won the Tony in 2009 for his lighting of the play Joe Turner's Come and Gone and again in 2011, for the musical Book of Mormon.

Productions

Broadway

What's Wrong With This Picture? – 1994 Love! Valour! Compassion! – 1995 Master Class – 1995 Summer and Smoke – 1996 Sex and Longing – 1996 Present Laughter – 1996 Side Show – 1997 Proposals – 1997 The Diary of Anne Frank – 1997 Wait Until Dark – 1998 Night Must Fall – 1999 True West – 2000 The Ride Down Mt. Morgan – 2000 The Dinner Party – 2000 Judgment at Nuremberg – 2001 The Invention of Love – 2001 A Thousand Clowns – 2001 Major Barbara – 2001 Urinetown – 2001 The Women – 2001 Morning's at Seven – 2002 Into the Woods – 2002 Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune – 2002 Tartuffe – 2003 Nine – 2003 Long Day's Journey Into Night – 2003 The Retreat from Moscow – 2003 Henry IV (Parts 1 and) 2) – 2003 Fiddler on the Roof – 2004 Match – 2004 A Raisin in the Sun – 2004 'night, Mother – 2004 Pacific Overtures – 2004 Good Vibrations – 2005 The Pillowman – 2005 Sweet Charity – 2005 Absurd Person Singular – 2005 The Color Purple – 2005 The Wedding Singer – 2006 The Coast of Utopia (Part 1 - Voyage) – 2006 The Vertical Hour – 2006 Inherit the Wind – 2007 Cymbeline – 2007 A Catered Affair – 2008 13 – 2008 Speed-the-Plow – 2008 American Buffalo – 2008 You're Welcome America – 2009 Blithe Spirit – 2009 Joe Turner's Come and Gone – 2009 Accent on Youth – 2009 Brighton Beach Memoirs – 2009 Race – 2010 A Behanding in Spokane – 2010 Fences – 2010 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – 2010 The Book of Mormon – 2011 The House of Blue Leaves – 2011 The Mountaintop – 2011 Chinglish – 2011 Death of a Salesman – 2012 Betrayal – 2013 A Raisin in the Sun – 2014 This Is Our Youth – 2014 A Delicate Balance – 2014 Fish in the Dark – 2015 Blackbird – 2016 The Front Page – 2016 Carousel – 2018 The Waverly Gallery – 2018 The Minutes – 2022 Plaza Suite – 2022 The Outsiders - 2024

Touring

Gigi (1984-1985) Can-Can (1988-1989) Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1994-1996) Master Class (1996-1997) Urinetown (2003-2004) The Color Purple (2007-2010) The Book of Mormon Tours Latter Day Tour (2012-2016) Jumamosi Tour (2012-2020)

West End

The Book of Mormon – 2021

Off-Broadway

Splendid Mummer – 1988 The Waves – 1990 Subfertile – 1990 Light Shining in Buckinghamshire – 1991 Fayebird – 1991 Shmulnik's Waltz – 1991 Man, Woman, Dinosaur – 1992 And – 1992 Candide – 1992 Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) – 1992 Three Hotels – 1993 Krapp's Last Tape – 1993 Later Life – 1993 The Maids – 1993 Family Secrets – 1993 First Lady Suite – 1993 The Illusion – 1994 The Mayors of Boy Town – 1994 The Arabian Nights – 1994 The Triumph of Love – 1994 Dog Opera – 1995 Northeast Local – 1995 Master Class – 1995 Blue Window – 1996 Overtime – 1996 Nude Nude Totally Nude – 1996 A Line Around the Block – 1996 By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea – 1996 Henry V – 1996 God's Heart – 1997

The Metropolitan Opera

Armida – 2010 Le comte Opry'' – 2011

Awards and nominations

Tony Awards

Drama Desk Awards

Outer Critics Circle Awards