Dede Ayite

Dede Ayite is a Ghanaian-American costume designer. She won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play for her work on Jaja's African Hair Braiding, and has received 5 other Tony nominations for costume design. She is best known for her work costuming the Broadway productions of Buena Vista Social Club, Slave Play, A Soldier's Play, Hell's Kitchen, and Jaja's African Hair Braiding.

Early life and education Ayite grew up in Ghana in West Africa. In 2001, she moved to live with her mother in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she finished high school.

Interested in pursuing her dual interests in science and the arts, Ayite attended Lehigh University, where she studied theater and behavioral neuroscience. She studied scenic design at the Yale School of Drama, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. Later that year, while live theater was on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ayite formed Design Action with fellow designers. Design Action worked to address racism in the theater community and support incoming designers of color.

In 2023, she designed costumes for the Off-Broadway and later Broadway productions of Buena Vista Social Club, earning a Tony nomination for the latter. The following year, she designed the costumes for Alicia Keys' jukebox musical Hells Kitchen, drawing inspiration from 90's street fashion. This also earned her a Tony nomination. She won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play for her work on Jaja's African Hair Braiding. This made her the first Black woman to win a Tony Award in this category.

In 2025, she designed costumes for Broadway's Othello starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. Her work was praised for its modernized depiction of a historic play and for its well-researched military accuracy.

Theatre credits

Broadway Ugly Lies the Bone (2015, Roundabout) The Last Tiger in Haiti (2016, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep) Bella: An American Tall Tale (2017, Playwrights Horizon) BLKS (2017, Steppenwolf) Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train (2017, Signature) Slave Play (2018, NYTW) School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (2018, MCC) Secret Life of Bees (2019, Atlantic) By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2019, Signature)

Awards

Outer Critics Circle Awards

Drama Desk Awards

Tony Awards