Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Scenic Design

Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Scenic Design
Awarded for	Outstanding Scenic Design
Location	New York City
Presented by	Outer Critics Circle
Currently held by	Miriam Buether, Jamie Harrison, and Chris Fisher, Stranger Things: The First Shadow (2025)
Website	OuterCriticsCircle.org

The Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Scenic Design is an honor presented at the Outer Critics Circle Awards, a ceremony established in 1950 for excellence in Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, to set designers of any production. The category was added to the ceremony in 1979 as the first technical award category as "Best Set Design" before being changed to "Outstanding Scenic Design" in 1999.

Robin Wagner has won the award the most times, with four wins, followed by Bob Crowley, Eugene Lee, David Gallo and Anthony Ward with two wins each. John Lee Beatty, however, holds the record for most nominations, with 12. Maria Bjornson was the first female scenic designer to win the award in 1988 for The Phantom of the Opera .

Award winners and nominees

Key

  and bold indicates the winner.

1970s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
1979
	John Wulp	The Crucifer of Blood

1980s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
1980
	John Lee Beatty	Hide and Seek and Talley's Folly
1981
	Robert Phillips[ disambiguation needed ]	Journey's End
1982	No award given.
1983
	Ming Cho Lee	K2
1984	No award given.
1985
	Tony Straiges	Diamonds and Sunday in the Park with George
1986
	Bob Shaw	The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1987
	John Napier	Les Misérables
1988
	Maria Bjornson	The Phantom of the Opera
1989
	Tony Walton	Lend Me a Tenor

1990s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
Note: award given as "Best Set, Costume and Lighting Design"
1990
	Robin Wagner	City of Angels
1991
	Heidi Landesman	The Secret Garden
1992
	Robin Wagner	Crazy for You
	Joe Vanck	Dancing at Lughnasa
	Richard Pilbrow	Four Baboons Adoring the Sun
	John Lee Beatty	Song of Singapore
1993
	John Arnone	The Who's Tommy
1994
	Bob Crowley	Carousel
1995
	Eugene Lee	Show Boat
1996
	Brian Thomson	The King and I
1997 (tie)
	David Gallo	Bunny Bunny
	Stewart Laing	Titanic
	Tony Walton	Steel Pier
John Lee Beatty	The Little Foxes
1998
	Richard Hudson	The Lion King
	Eugene Lee	Ragtime
	Tony Straiges	Golden Child
	Heidi Ettinger	The Sound of Music
Note: award given as "Outstanding Scenic Design"
1999
	Richard Hoover	Not About Nightingales
	James Noone	Night Must Fall
	Bob Crowley	The Iceman Cometh
	John Lee Beatty	The Mystery of Irma Vep

2000s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
2000
	Robin Wagner	Kiss Me, Kate
	William Dudley	Amadeus
	John Lee Beatty	An Experiment with an Air Pump
	Thomas Lynch	The Music Man
2001
	Robin Wagner	The Producers
	Douglas Schmidt	42nd Street
	Heidi Ettinger	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
	Bob Crowley	The Invention of Love
2002
	Anthony Ward	Oklahoma!
	Douglas Stein	36 Views
	John Lee Beatty	Morning's at Seven
	Allen Moyer	The Dazzle
2003
	Catherine Martin	La Bohème
	Tony Straiges	Enchanted April
	David Rockwell	Hairspray
	John Lee Beatty	Dinner at Eight
	Scott Pask	Nine
2004
	Eugene Lee	Wicked
	John Lee Beatty	Twentieth Century
	Vicki Mortimer	Jumpers
	Ralph Funicello	Henry IV
2005
	Anthony Ward	Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
	Michael H. Yeargan	The Light in the Piazza
	Robert Brill	A Streetcar Named Desire
	Scott Pask	The Pillowman
	Tim Hatley	Spamalot
2006
	David Gallo	The Drowsy Chaperone
	John Lee Beatty	The Color Purple
	William Dudley	The Woman in White
	Allen Moyer	Grey Gardens
2007
	Bob Crowley and Scott Pask	The Coast of Utopia
	Ti Green and Melly Still	Coram Boy
	Bob Crowley	Mary Poppins
	Derek McLane	The Voysey Inheritance
2008
	David Farley and Tim Bird	Sunday in the Park with George
	Scott Pask	Les Liaisons Dangereuses
	Robin Wagner	Young Frankenstein
	Michael H. Yeargan	South Pacific
2009
	Tim Hatley	Shrek the Musical
	Derek McLane	33 Variations
	Ian MacNeil	Billy Elliot
	Santo Loquasto	Waiting for Godot
	Walt Spangler	Desire Under the Elms

2010s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
2010
	Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch	The Addams Family
	John Lee Beatty	The Royal Family
	Donyale Werle	Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
	Beowulf Boritt	Sondheim on Sondheim
2011
	Neil Murray	Brief Encounter
	Derek McLane	Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
	Todd Rosenthal	The Motherfucker with the Hat
	Desmond Heeley	The Importance of Being Earnest
2012
	George Tsypin	Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark
	Bob Crowley	Once
	Christopher Oram	Evita
	Derek McLane	Nice Work If You Can Get It
2013
	Rob Howell	Matilda
	Scott Pask	Pippin
	John Lee Beatty	The Nance
	Michael H. Yeargan	Golden Boy
	David Korins	Here Lies Love
2014
	Christopher Barreca	Rocky
	Beowulf Boritt	Act One
	Es Devlin	Machinal
	Alexander Dodge	A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder
	Bob Crowley	Aladdin
2015
	Bunny Christie	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
	David Rockwell	On the Twentieth Century
	Bob Crowley	An American in Paris
	Michael H. Yeargan	The King and I
	Scott Pask	Something Rotten!
2016
	David Rockwell	She Loves Me
	Beowulf Boritt	Thérèse Raquin
	David Korins	Misery
	Mimi Lien	John
	Walt Spangler	Tuck Everlasting
2017
	Mimi Lien	Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812
	Scott Pask	The Little Foxes
	Nigel Hook	The Play That Goes Wrong
	Douglas W. Schmidt	The Front Page
	Alexander Dodge	Anastasia
2018
	Christine Jones	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
	Myung Hee Cho	In the Body of the World
	Michael H. Yeargan	My Fair Lady
	David Zinn	SpongeBob SquarePants
	Miriam Buether	Three Tall Women
2019
	David Korins	Beetlejuice
	Bunny Christie	Ink
	Beowulf Boritt	Bernhardt/Hamlet
	Rachel Hauck	Hadestown
	Rob Howell	The Ferryman

2020s

Year	Name	Work	Ref.
2020 (Hon.)	Rob Howell	A Christmas Carol
	Clint Ramos	Grand Horizons
	Derek McLane	Moulin Rouge!
	Tim Mackabee	Seared
	Anthony Ward	The Height of the Storm
2021	No award given due to COVID-19 pandemic.
2022
	Adam Rigg	The Skin of Our Teeth
	Es Devlin	The Lehman Trilogy
	Beowulf Boritt	Flying Over Sunset
	Scott Pask	American Buffalo
	David Zinn	The Minutes
2023
	Beowulf Boritt	New York, New York	[1]
	Simon Scullion	Peter Pan Goes Wrong
	John Lee Beatty	Epiphany
	Jason Ardizzone-West and Beowulf Boritt	Wedding Band
	Mimi Lien	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2024 (tie)
	Paul Tate dePoo III	The Great Gatsby	[2]
	David Zinn	Stereophonic
	Paul Tate dePoo III	The Cottage
	dots (Andrew Moerdyk, Kimie Nishikawa and Santiago Orjuela-Laverde)	Appropriate
David Korins	Here Lies Love
2025
	Miriam Buether, Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher	The Great Gatsby	[3] [4]
	Dane Laffrey	Maybe Happy Ending
	Rachel Hauck	Swept Away
	Rob Howell	The Hills of California
	Derek McLane	Death Becomes Her

Multiple wins

4 wins

• Robin Wagner

2 wins

• Bob Crowley
• Eugene Lee
• David Gallo
• Anthony Ward

Multiple nominations

12 nominations

• John Lee Beatty

8 nominations

• Bob Crowley
• Scott Pask

7 nominations

• Beowulf Boritt

6 nominations

• Derek McLane

5 nominations

• Michael Yeargan

4 nominations

• David Korins
• Rob Howell

3 nominations

• Tony Straiges
• Eugene Lee
• Anthony Ward
• David Rockwell
• Mimi Lien

2 nominations

• Tony Walton
• David Gallo
• Heidi Ettinger
• Douglas Schmidt
• Allen Moyer
• Tim Hatley
• William Dudley
• Walt Spangler
• Paul Tate dePoo III
• Rachel Hauck
• Es Devlin
• Alexander Dodge
• Bunny Christie

References

1. Culwell-Block, Logan (May 16, 2023). "Some Like It Hot Dominates 2023 Outer Critics Circle Awards; See the Full List of Winners". Playbill. Retrieved September 1, 2025.
2. "Stereophonic Leads 2024 Outer Critics Circle Awards, Wins Best Play; See the Full List of Winners". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2025-08-19. Retrieved 2025-09-01.
3. Culwell-Block, Logan (May 12, 2025). "Maybe Happy Ending Leads 2025 Outer Critics Circle Awards; See the Full List of Winners". Playbill. Retrieved September 1, 2025.
4. Evans, Greg (2025-04-25). "'Death Becomes Her' Broadway Musical Leads Outer Critics Circle Award Nominees – Complete List". Deadline. Retrieved 2025-09-01.