Costume Designer

Dede
Ayite

(she/her)

Dede Ayite is a Tony Award–winning costume designer. She has designed over a dozen productions on Broadway including Buena Vista Social Club, Hell’s Kitchen, Purpose, Othello, Topdog/Underdog, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding(Tony Award), Slave Play, and A Soldier’s Play. She has been nominated for six Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards, also earning a special Drama Desk Award in 2022 and the TDF/Kitty Leech Young Master Award. Ayite designed X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at The Met. Select Off-Broadway projects include: Goddess, Merry Wives(The Public Theater); Marie and Rosetta, Fireflies (Atlantic Theater Company); Nollywood Dreams, BLKS, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (MCC Theater); and Here There Are Blueberries (New York Theatre Workshop). Her work has also appeared Off-Broadway at Signature Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, and Roundabout Theatre Company. Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage, and more. Television: Netflix, Comedy Central. Awards: Obie, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, AUDELCO,and Jeff Awards. Teaching: Lecturer on Theater, Dance & Media at Harvard University, Fordham University. Ayite earned her M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama.