Company returned to Broadway after a triumphant run in London’s West End in 2020, and then again in 2022. Working with lead producer Chris Harper, marketing director Scott More and ad agency AKA, I helped Art Direct the original key art, a post covid campaign refresh, and a Tony campaign. Winner of 5 2022 Tony awards, including Best Musical Revival, this modernization of Stephen Sondheim’s master work from the 70’s was a fresh take that showcased all of the mastery director Marianne Elliot possesses.

Agency:AKA

Marketing director: Scott Moore

Designer Tony package: Frank Garguilo

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges

The Broadway League and its leading committees asked me to oversee an advertising campaign for Broadway’s return from its much-too-long Covid shutdown. Over a 18 month period, working with filmmaker Jon Kane, branding lead Andrew Lazarro, the staff and leading Broadway figures under the auspices of the Broadway League itself, and in partnership with several Omnicom agencies, we built a new logo for all of Broadway, a new web site for ordering tickets and :06, :15, :30 spots as well as a mothership of a 2:30 film. Broadway re-opened in September 2021.

Rent had opened at New York Theatre Workshop a few days earlier to the sound of a cultural sonic boom. The night I attended I held in my hand the single hottest ticket in New York.

The next day, I wrote Jeffrey and his producing partner Kevin McCollum a letter, outlining my ideas, my vision, my passion. I am still so proud of it.

Marketing to yourself is the easiest form of marketing we do, and we get to do it rarely. But that was the gift of Rent. During art school at the School of Visual Arts, I was baffled by what I saw as Broadway posters. While the shows appealed to me, the campaigns didn’t. Rent was a true Broadway musical to me, not some strange basement concert. But I thought most of Broadway had forgotten about the Baby Boomers who loved it but who were never marketed to in a contemporary way. And that is how I proposed to sell it: as a true Broadway musical, but marketed with a contemporary voice.

Two of my finest clients ever, friends to this day—Jeffrey and Kevin—asked me to design the rest of the campaign, beyond the album—to write the copy, make the newspaper ads, then the TV commercial. It was all given to a Broadway newbie with the faith of true believers and supporters.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Naomi Mizusaki
Photographer: Amy Guip

The producing team of this vibrant theatrical tale based on Allanis Morissette’s iconic album asked me to reconsider the branding of the Broadway show while it was on Covid hiatus.

I wanted to bring the rock ’n roll forward, so audiences understood what an exciting evening it is, while also refreshing people’s memories that it got extraordinary reviews, and that it had a plot. Working with Art Director Nicky Lindeman, we created a new piece of key art with the family, and emphasized the reviews in as dynamic a voice as we could find. It came back to Broadway in 2022 and now continues to tour around the world.

Art Director: Nicky Lindeman

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges

The Huntington Theatre is one of America’s most prestigious and long running institutional theaters. On their Boston campus, the theater is moving into a new building currently under construction. We were asked to brand the theatre with a more contemporary voice, and unify the many activities the theatre creates across the city with a look and strategy that is memorable but also flexible.

Designer: Kevin Brainard/Area of Practice

Creative Director: Drew Hodges

Hamilton is the best show I have ever seen. I don’t say that to minimize any others. I don’t even say it with exuberance. It just came into my head as a fact as I sat and watched the workshop with Mike Nichols and every other theater luminary I had the gift and privilege to be in the room with. It moves the art form forward. It begins where In the Heights left off—and that was quite a high note. Three songs in, it downshifts into a song called “Wait for It,” a completely new sound from this composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda. It then makes that shift again and again. Every time you think you have it pegged, it stretches its arms and legs and becomes something else, something undeniably new. Finally, when it’s almost done, and you are thoroughly thrilled and moved, it does it one more time, by letting Hamilton himself go and inviting his rock and joy of a wife to finish the story, celebrating their love and commitment over adversity, ambition, and ego.

Hamilton Calendar 2017/2018, created in collaboration with Portland design studio Might and Main’s Sean Wilkinson.

Hamilton Brand Identity
Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Nicky Lindeman

Sweat is an acclaimed play by Pulitzer winner playwright Lynn Nottage. Set in Reading Pennsylvania, it takes on the hot button issues of our day: Nafta and trade deficits, race, Immigration, education, the middle class of manufacturing, and unions. But it is also thrillingly human, showing how families try to hold together through laughter and memory when the present strips everyone of their very survival.

Producer Stuart Thompson and director Kate McKinnon along with Ms. Nottage challenged me to find a dynamic image that gave us the setting of the play, and a look that could hold both the conflict and the joy the friendships in the play hold.

Design studio Area of Practice worked with me to find photographer Pari Dukovic, and we shot this image on the set of the Public theaters where after a sold out run there, Sweat moved uptown to Broadway.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Area of Practice 
Photographer: Pari Dukovic

Confederates is a new play by Dominique Morrisseau presented by the Signature Theater Company Off Broadway.

It tells the tale of an enslaved woman during the Civil War hoping to escape, and a professor at a prestigious Ivy League Institution trapped within racist expectations of history, how it is taught, and by whom.

Illustrator: Eddie Guy

Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Creative Director: Drew Hodges

The New York Botanical Garden asked us for a look for its yearly Holiday train show that felt playful and exciting during the difficult Covid years. This was one of the cities first activities to be re-established, and we needed bright confidence. Illustrator Jon Pirman put the modern spin into this holiday tradition.

Illustration: Jon Pirman

Creative Director: Drew Hodges

The Perelman is the arts center planned for New York's World Trade Center. It’s a remarkable complex, an instant international landmark, and a forward thinking arts hub, providing the cutting edge in flexibility and technology to the greatest performance creators worldwide. We were asked to create a positioning, competitive analysis and branding for the center, collaborating with advertising agency SpotCo. These two brand sets were finalists, although ultimately not used when a new creative team was installed.

Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges

One of our most storied clients Jeffrey Seller(Rent/Ave Q/In The Heights/Hamilton) has premiered a Broadway show with our new friend Flody Suarez(Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Blacklist) entitled The Cher Show.

It is a book musical in the guise of a variety show that examines Cher’s life from young teenage girl to present day superstar, using three actress playing Cher across the years. We were looking for a brand that both evoked the song and dance half-hours of the 70’s like The Flip Wilson show, but also give the brand a sense of present day retro-modernness. Cher represents so many styles over the years, that we knew to pick just one would be too limiting.

Enter design legends House Industries. Creatives Andy Cruz and Ken Barber put together a series of marks, which ultimately evolved not only into a brand, but a television spot as well.

And as with any brand, this is just the beginning, as the beat goes on….and on.

Design: House Industries
Designers: Andy Cruz, Ken Barber
Creative director: Drew Hodges

We began as if the show had never existed before on Broadway, and we banished the word “revival.” I decided the real perception challenge here was to make it clear from the get-go that with all the budget in the world, our bandstand and bentwood chairs were all the spectacle we needed. But how?

It occurred to me that when Calvin Klein ran a black-and-white fashion ad (Marky Mark and so on), no one perceived it as if Klein lacked the budget to run color—it was clearly an aesthetic choice. So we decided to use the device of fashion photography to own the minimalism from the start. 

The other rule we somehow understood intuitively was about sex. The Chicago women were sexier than Broadway had ever been, thanks to William Ivey Long’s stunning costumes and a gorgeous, leggy cast. But what allowed them to be genuinely sexy in the newspaper was their power. No behind-bars settings for this Chicago. It would have made the women victims. By allowing them to control their image from the start, they could be sexy—sexy as hell.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Drew Hodges / Vinnie Sainto
Photographer: Max Vadukal

BCEFA used this poster to mail to high level donors to commemorate the return to Broadway after a too too long Covid shutdown.

Illustrator: Michael Byers

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges

Meca is a new identity for the Maine College of Art.

This legendary film from Sydney Pollack and Lerry gelbart has now been retooled for Broadway by Tony and Grammy winner David Yazbek and Book writer Robert Horn. Dorothy Michaels is an extraordinary woman, role model and now Broadway star. We wanted to featured the iconic sequin dress by William Ivey Long, but also the hilarity of the entire show. Funny show, hopefully funny advertising and merch.

Creative Director: Drew Hodges/Mary Littell
Designer: AKA/Frank Garguilo
Photographer: Robert Trachtenberg/Darren Cox

Famed Hudson River School artists Thomas Cole and mentee Frederick Church built estates across the Hudson River from each other, just 3 miles apart. They used the Hudson Valley and Catskill mountains as their Eden, and in the process built America’s first vision of itself as beautiful. We were asked to brand a new walking path between the two sites which will launch this summer. We built a brand that provides a logo, website, portfolio for the individual artist’s work, and a map to illustrate the route and environment.

Creative Director: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell
Writer: Lisbeth Kaiser
Map Illustrator: Henrik Reintz

Producer and friend Jenny Gersten asked me to create a lead image for their unique version of Sweeney Todd. This revival was first staged in London at Harringtons, London’s oldest Pie and Mash shop. The grand spectacle and grisly violence of Sweeney Todd play practically in your lap, as 100 plus “customers” get their ale, pie, and a Sweeney Todd performance of such intimacy it is unlike any other.

The image is made from an imagined perfect pie shop - part English meat pie shop, part American bodega, part fantasy. I sketched this shop right away on the classic napkin, and designer Jonathan Novak helped me imagine it’s details. Lastly, photographer Matt Murphy shot our Sweeney with gleaming razors and motion blurs, and all were digitally assemble to create the perfect street side emporium.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Jonathan Novac
Photographer: Mathew Murphy

Lead Producer Carmen Pavlovic and Executive Producer Bill Damaschke asked us to create the look of Moulin Rouge emphasizing something new for the live stage. Designer Rex Bonomelli and I were inspired by Derek McLane’s spectacular sets - a complete environment, a world, a gorgeous fantasy. We created a title treatment in 3d that can be animated with motion, and characters and lighting. The border shown here, as well as Nicole Kidman as stand in for Satine on a swing have yet to be put into action, but you never know!

Here’s hoping this key art helps audiences everywhere understand that you Can Can Can.

Design: Rex Bonomelli
Creative Director: Drew Hodges

Jed Bernstein, director of the Aspen Theatre and the Aspen Theater Festival asked us to help him launch a first of it’s kind - a Solo theatre festival. This festival, which begins in the fall of 2019, will showcase blockbuster solo work as well as new work in development, functioning as a showcase and a development lab. We envisioned many different photography materials being provided by the performers - color, black and white, head shots, color press images, and we wanted to build a logo that could function as an advertising campaign with the materials provided. This should give a consistency to the advertising often lacking due to these divergent materials.

Creative Director: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell

The story that defined a generation is reimagined in a groundbreaking musical. In 1967 Tulsa, Oklahoma, the hardened hearts, aching souls and romantic dreams of Ponyboy Curtis, Johnny Cade and their band of greasers take center stage in a fight for purpose and a quest for survival. Adapted from S.E. Hinton’s seminal book and Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic film, and directed by Tony nominee Liesl Tommy with a book by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Adam Rapp, The Outsiders features a score by acclaimed Austin-based rock duo Jamestown Revival and Justin Levine.

Anything Can Happen on Live TV, and One Night it Did.

It’s 1958, and Jack Paar hosts the hottest late-night talk-show on television. His favorite guest? Character actor, pianist and wild card Oscar Levant. Famous for his witty one-liners, Oscar has a favorite: “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity; I have erased this line.” Tonight, Oscar will prove just that when he appears live on national TV in an episode Paar’s audience—and the rest of America—won’t soon forget. Good Night, Oscar explores the nexus of humor and heartbreak, the ever-dwindling distinction between exploitation and entertainment, and the high cost of baring one’s soul for public consumption.

Fiddler on the Roof has a storied musical theater history. Director Joey Grey asked if we could create a look to match the grit, warmth and realism of his 2019 Off Broadway production, performed entirely in Yiddish. Working with photographer Mathew Murphy, we had a lovely Sunday watching Tevye and his daughters hug in rhythm. As Hal Prince’s quote says “It's like you are seeing Fiddler for the first time”.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Director Jerry Mitchell came to us asking for an image for this new musical, set to premiere at the Alliance theater in Atlanta. It’s a very funny, very fun story about a boy in 1979 who get cast in his High School production of Oliver as the character of Nancy. He works through it with help from his two friends, and additional advice from Sting, Kate Bush, and Blondie who come to life from his bedroom walls. Rock n Roll, as well as honesty and bravery eventually save the day.

Creative Director: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell
Photographer: Mathew Murphy

Famed media mogul Fred Seibert helped give me my start 25 years ago, so we were thrilled to be asked to commemorate 20 years of Frederator, Fred’s studio and creativity farm, with a poster.

Frederator’s logo is a robot, so we looked to the classic German poster design of Metropolis for inspiration. We “drew” the art using the Flat Iron building and Ladies Mile neighborhood of Frederator’s office.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Luxury boat builder and close friend Eli Ellis asked us to create a logo system for his new Adventure Rig workshop. Eli and his partner are taking Mercedes Sprinter vans and outfitting the interiors as luxe outdoor-seeking homesteads. They are equipped with a bathroom, stove, bed/couch, storage unit, and carry multiple sets of skis and mountain bikes. They bring the concept of nautical customization on dry land, anywhere you want to go.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Producers Carmen Pavlovic and Roy Furman approach SpotCo advertising and DrewDesignCo to help brand King Kong on Broadway. King Kong is unlike anything you have ever seen on stage, a 6 story animatronic beast of great emotional range, but also the center of a reimagined tales as a modern cutting edge musical. It also comes with a budget thats well beyond your average musical, and in order for it’s economics to work, needs to be a choice for audiences well beyond simply the Broadway avid. It needs credibility across the “fanboy” genre, the tourist, male and female audiences.

One of SpotCo’s Creative directors Jacob Cooper worked with us on trying to make his vision of working with poster artist extraordinaire Olly Moss, and ultimately a collectors set of posters a reality. 

This is the final poster image, recently released, as well as three early sketches from Olly Moss, each trying to deliver something unexpected and new.

Creative director: Jacob Cooper/Drew Hodges
Designer: Jacob Cooper
Illustrator: Olly Moss

Rizzoli published this retrospective in 2016. With essays by friends David Sedaris and Chip Kidd, this is my attempt to show the history of our work for 3 decades, and to show WHY work was made. Rather than a beauty pageant, all the work we make is strategic, and makes the ticket buyer an emotional promise that is paid off upon getting your ticket ripped(or scanned as the case may be). It’s on it’s third printing, and is available from Amazon and bookstores everywhere.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Supermarket Studio/Naomi Mizusaki
Editor: Garth Wingfield
Introductions: Chip Kidd/David Sedaris
Publisher: Rizzoli

For this revival of famed play Six Degrees of Separation, playwright John Guare, director Trip Cullman and producers Stuart Thompson and Tim Levy encouraged me to find an image as strong as the original James McMullan painting for it's premiere production at Lincoln Center. After some discussion I put forward the idea of Alex Katz to do portraits of the cast. Mr. Katz proved enthusiastic of the idea, but too busy to do three new portraits. He gave me carte blanche to consider his body of work, and after many many combinations, we found the perfect match in these three images - hopefully speaking to the cultural elite of the plays art world zeitgeist, and our anti-heroes hope of joining that world.

Creative Direction & Designer: Drew Hodges
Illustration: Alex Katz

Client Scott Sanders and Westfield engaged us to name, support and brand their touring show of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Frescoes. The challenge was to promise what we will be delivering, and bring design work elegant enough to elevate the entire experience. Working together with Susan Holland Events, this project was a secular cathedral meeting a sacred one, and yielding extraordinary results.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Hallie Mitchell

Hillary for President creative director Jennifer Kinon had the idea of asking a who’s who of graphic designers to design campaign buttons. We were each allowed to pick an issue we might be passionate about, and submit several concepts. I chose Prep, which is an 98% effective block for the transmittal of AIDS, and a platform plank for the Clinton campaign. The final set is an explosion of wit and color, and I am honored to be included.

Creative Direction: Jennifer Kinon
Designer: Drew Hodges

Avenue Q came to Broadway with many many challenges. Irreverent, even filthy, perceived by audiences through a lens of what we termed “puppet bias”, we had our work cut out for us. But it was howlingly funny, and spoke to a contemporary millennial audience in a way almost no show had done before. We hope to disarm and engage by making the laughs. Ultimately, Avenue Q was paired alongside of powerhouse Wicked for the Tony Award race as an impossible underdog.

We never felt we even had a shot of winning, and so felt free to be as irreverent as the show itself in it’s promotion. Almost 15 years later, it’s humor is still bracing and the show is still running.

Creative Direction: Drew Hodges
Designer: Gail Anderson
 

Photographer Todd Webb(1905-2000) was one of Americas all time great photographers. In preparation for a retrospective at The Museum of the City of New York, the conservators of his work asked me for a logo that seemed contemporary but simple, and sat quietly alongside such extraordinary imagery.

Designer: Drew Hodges