Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation—the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society—has announced the recipients of the 2025 Abe Burrows Award for Assistant Directors. 

Winners are Mack Brown and Tai Thompson, who will each receive an unrestricted $10,000 award. Katie Young is this year’s finalist.

The Abe Burrows Award is given annually to a director or director-choreographer currently working as an assistant director. The award allows both recipients to focus on their work as an assistant director to an SDC member between August 2025 and December 2026.

Established by the James and Deborah Burrows Foundation and supported by a matching contribution from Thomas Kail, the award honors Tony-winning director Abe Burrows, who cared deeply about fostering the next generation of directors. As a director and writer, Burrows is known for his work on How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, for which he won Tony Awards for Best Director, Best Book, and Best Musical, as well as the Pulitzer Prize with his collaborator Frank Loesser. His additional Broadway credits include Guys and Dolls and Can-Can.

Brown is a Brooklyn-based artist who builds precise new musicals, plays that challenge our collective moral compass, and theatre that is trans-genre and transsexual. Thompson is a NYC-based multidisciplinary artist specializing in new works and immersive theatre. Young is a New York-based director and stage manager with a passion for labor organizing and animals.

Read more about the winners and finalists by clicking here.