The Black Women on Broadway Awards has announced the honorees for its fifth annual celebration. The awards honor Broadway performers, creatives and producers at various stages of their careers in four categories. Honorees of the 2026 Black Women on Broadway Awards will be celebrated on June 1 in a ceremony at Chelsea Piers’ Current event venue.
At the 2026 ceremony, Debra Martin Chase will receive the Audra McDonald Legacy Award, which recognizes an artist with a storied career and significant theater achievements. Chase is a producer of film, television and theater, credited on the 1997 broadcast version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” On Broadway, she was a co-producer on the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning plays “Purpose” and “Topdog/Underdog,” and the Tony-winning musicals “The Outsiders” and “A Strange Loop.” Currently, she is a producer of the stage adaptation of the Prince movie musical “Purple Rain,” and the Off-Broadway revival of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”
Whitney White will be honored with the Kathy A. Perkins Behind the Curtain Award, granted to an artist in recognition of their backstage work. White is the winner of a 2020 Obie Award for her direction of “Our Dear Dead Druglord,” as well as a 2026 Obie for Sustained Achievement in Direction. Her Broadway directing credits include “Liberation,” “The Last Five Years” and “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”; for the latter, she was nominated for a Tony in 2023. Off-Broadway, she has directed “Jordans” at the Public Theater and “On Sugarland” at New York Theater Workshop. White has also been the recipient of the Herb Alpert Award and the Susan Stroman Directing Award.
Alana Raquel Bowers will receive the Florence Mills Shining Star Award, recognizing an early-career or rising talent. Bowers, an actor, dancer and producer, made her Broadway debut in “Chicken and Biscuits,” and has since appeared Off-Broadway in “Cold War Choir Practice,” “The Miser,” “Bernarda’s Daughters” and “What to Send Up When It Goes Down.”
Casting director Destiny Lilly will be recognized with the Special Citation Trailblazer Award. Working across theater, film and television, her Broadway credits include “A Strange Loop,” “Purlie Victorious,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “Clyde’s.” Lilly is also president of the American Casting Society, and has received its Outstanding Achievement in Casting award for her work on the Off-Broadway play “Sh*t. Meet. Fan.”
“This milestone year is a powerful reminder of why we started the Black Women on Broadway Awards,” said Black Women on Broadway (BWOB) co-founders Danielle Brooks, Amber Iman and Jocelyn Bioh in a joint statement. “This moment is designed to uplift and celebrate the achievements of Black women in theater and enjoy an afternoon where this incredible community can really see and feel the impact that we have made both in the industry and for each other. We are proud to honor these four incredibly talented and hardworking women, Debra Martin Chase, Whitney White, Alana Raquel Bowers and Destiny Lilly, for their outstanding accomplishments and lasting impact both on and off Broadway.”
Since their debut in 2022, the Black Women on Broadway Awards have honored the likes of Cynthia Erivo, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, LaChanze, Khaila Wilcoxon, Irene Gandy, Aisha Jackson, DeDe Ayite, Lynn Nottage, Qween Jean, Kara Young, Natasha Yvette Williams, Joy Woods and Nikiya Mathis.
BWOB’s fundraising efforts have also allowed the organization to launch a pair of initiatives: Danielle Brooks’ Century Cycle Continues Monologue Competition, which invites high school students to perform works by playwrights of color, and the Black Women on Broadway reading series, which puts up staged public readings of new work by Black women playwrights. BWOB also hosts a series of Roundtables, released biannually online, and produces a variety of workshops and mentorship events for early career artists.
