The Chita Rivera Awards, the annual accolades which acknowledge achievement in dance and choreography, will honor Tony Award winner Ben Vereen with a lifetime achievement award at its annual ceremony. The event will be held on May 19 at the NYU Skirball Center for the Arts. Nominations for the awards will be announced on April 29.
The Chita Rivera Awards encompass categories for choreography, featured dancers and ensembles for productions both on and Off-Broadway, as well as in film, that opened in the 2024-2025 season. Nominators must see eligible shows by April 27.
Vereen won a Tony Award in 1973 for originating the role of Leading Player in “Pippin.” The year prior, he received a Tony nomination for his featured turn as Judas Iscariot in the original Main Stem mounting of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” He has been featured in the dance-heavy musicals “Fosse,” “Jelly’s Last Jam” and “Grind.” Vereen most recently appeared on Broadway replacing as the Wizard in “Wicked,” a role he repeated in the musical’s Chicago sitdown production.
“We are thrilled to honor Ben Vereen with this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award,” said Joe Lanteri, founder and executive director of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation and producer of the awards, in a statement. “Over his unprecedented career, Ben has starred on stage and screen, performed around the world and has been a public speaker and humanitarian for causes close to his heart including Black history and continuing education. Ben’s performance on Broadway in “Pippin” as the Leading Player won him a Tony Award and he’d go on to have a four-decade career in the theater. We look forward to celebrating him on May 19.”
As was the case in years past, Broadway productions and motion pictures will have separate nominating committees, as well as a designated awarding committee. Off-Broadway will be honored in non-competive categories. The recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to the Arts and Humanities Award is still to be announced. For the third consecutive year, the category of Outstanding Dancer in a Broadway Show will not be broken down by gender; the category will have twice as many nominees as the previous gendered categories, and two individuals will be named winners.
Established in 1982 under the name the Fred and Adele Astaire Awards, the citations were renamed in 2017 to honor two-time Tony Award-winning actor Chita Rivera. The awards will benefit the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation College Scholarship Program.
The 2025 awarding committee includes chair Sylviane Gold, as well as Gary Chryst, Robert LaFosse, Wendy Perron, Stephanie Pope and Lee Roy Reams. The Broadway nomination committee comprises Melinda Atwood, Caitlin Carter, Chryst, Don Correia, Sandy Duncan, Peter Filichia, Louis Galli, Gold, Jonathan Herzog, La Fosse, Lanteri, Michael Milton, Mary Beth O’Connor, Perron, Pope, Reams, Desmond Richardson, Andy Sandberg and Randy Skinner. Finally, the film nomination committee includes chair Herzog, Steven Caras, Wilhelmina Frankfurt, O’Connor and Sandberg.
At the 2024 edition of the awards, Camille A. Brown tied with Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll for Outstanding Choreography for their work on “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Water for Elephants,” respectively. Bernadette Peters received the award for lifetime achievement.
The Chita Rivera Awards is being produced by Lanteri, in conjunction with Patricia Watt.
