Current and former Columbia College Chicago Theatre students will be honored as part of the 2025 Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration celebration on Monday, May 19, at the Black Ensemble Theatre.

Tuesday Thacker, a former student in the Theatre Stage Management program at Columbia, will receive The Early Career Technical Award, a $2,000 honorarium presented annually to an emerging technician in acknowledgement of excellence in artistry and collaboration.

And Dylan Hirt, a graduating senior in the Stage Management program, will receive the John Murbach Columbia College Chicago Prize, which is given annually to a graduating student in the Theatre Design and Technology program. The prize honors the memory of former Columbia College Theatre faculty member John Murbach, who died in 2001 at age 44. The Murbach Prize is one of several Academic Prizes for Collaborative Design and Technology given by the the Michael Merritt Awards and Endowment Fund each year.

The Michael Merritt Award, a national award unique in its emphasis on excellence in both design and collaboration, has been presented annually since 1994 to outstanding professional theatrical designers. The Michael Merritt Awards program, administered by the Michael Merritt Awards and Endowment Fund, also recognizes and encourages the work of young professionals and students through a national design exposition and academic achievement prizes to promising theatrical design and technology students. The Michael Merritt Awards honor the memory of former Columbia College Chicago Theatre faculty member and Joseph Jefferson Award-winning stage and film designer Michael Merritt, noted for his set, lighting, and costume designs for Chicago’s Goodman, Steppenwolf, Northlight, Victory Gardens, Wisdom Bridge, National Jewish, and Chicago Shakespeare theatres as well as for Broadway and motion pictures. Merritt died in 1992 at the age of 47.