Dede Ayite has turn into the primary Black lady to win a Tony for greatest costume design of a play on the 2024 Tony Awards.
Although nominated for her work on a number of exhibits, Ayite gained for her work on the now-closed Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.
The present, which opened in October 2023 and closed the next month, is about in a bustling Harlem salon the place West African immigrant hair braiders create masterpiece hairstyles for native ladies amid unsure circumstances that finally face the neighborhood to confront being an outsider in a spot they name house.
Written by Jocelyn Bioh, Jaja’s went into the 2024 Tonys up for 5 awards.
Throughout her acceptance speech, Ayite, who was additionally nominated in the identical class for her work on Applicable and in the very best costume design of a musical class for Hell’s Kitchen, thanked her household, together with her brother cheering her on from Ghana, and her collaborators. She additionally thanked Bioh, “who wrote such a good looking piece” in addition to the costume retailers and makers, saying of the latter, “with out them I’d not be right here and the present wouldn’t look as superb because it does.”
Backstage, Ayite marveled at her history-making win, calling it “large.”
“Folks like me which are simply beginning out and aren’t positive and are fearful and simply don’t know what it’s going to take, and also you don’t know tips on how to discover that step to take you ahead, so I’m simply hopeful that this second says, ‘Simply maintain at it.’ You already know, inform the tales that matter to you, inform the story that you just discover worth in, and the second will meet you. That’s what’s taking place for me proper now.”
She added, “It’s not nearly me, however we did it: the neighborhood that helps me, the neighborhood of folks that love me every day and cheer me on. For me, I simply really feel prefer it’s not nearly me proper now. It’s the neighborhood. It’s that we’ve finished it collectively.”