CAMBRIDGE, MA — Cynthia Erivo, who stars in the hit musical “Wicked,” was named the 2025 Woman of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals on Tuesday.
The theater company, which was founded in 1844 and claims to be the world’s third-oldest still operating theater company, said Erivo would receive the pudding pot award at a celebratory roast on February 5. She will then attend Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 176th performance of the production. , “Curse No. 101”. Actor Jon Hamm, who rose to fame as advertising executive Don Draper on the AMC series “Mad Men,” has been named 2025 Person of the Year. He will receive his pudding pot on January 31st.
“We are making room for the arrival of Cynthia Erivo,” Hannah Frazer, event coordinator for this year’s Men and Women, said in a statement. “We are cleaning out our broom closets and preparing for some wicked humor as we eagerly await her in February. She’ll have to use a little magic to get it before she flies away with the pudding pot.”
The British entertainer, who starred in the hit musical, was twice nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy.
Erivo burst onto the scene with a stellar performance in the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple.” She won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for performing a song from the play on the “Today” show. The weekly program featured outstanding musical performances, and the show’s soundtrack won Best Musical Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
Last year, Erivo starred in and produced “Drift,” which tells the story of a young Liberian refugee who escapes his war-torn homeland to a Greek island. In 2021, Erivo received an Emmy nomination for her role as Aretha Franklin in the National Geographic series ‘Genius: Aretha.’
Pudding has presented its Woman of the Year Award every year since 1951 to actresses including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson, and Annette Bening.
