Photo Coverage: 2009 NYMF Season Awards Festival Gala!

The New York Musical Theater Festival honored TV's NY 1 ON STAGE and Sh-K-Boom & Ghostlight Records at its sixth Anniversary Season Awards Gala on Sunday, November 22nd at The Edison Ballroom (240 West 47th Street). The winners of NYMF 2009 Awards for Excellence, which were announced earlier this month, were also honored at the gala.  Broadwayworld was there to capture the excitement of the event for you!

The 2009 Awards Gala also featured special performances by Gavin Creel, Ann Harada, Tom Kitt, Greg Naughton, Kelli O'Hara, Alice Ripley, Sherie Rene Scott, the cast of [title of show] with special guest Jonathan Groff, and the casts of the award-winning NYMF 2009 shows. Additional presenters included Douglas Carter Beane, Chad Kimball, Richard Kind, Michael John LaChiusa, legendary Korean film star and chief chairman of the Daegu International Musical Festival Shin Sung Yill, Karen Ziemba, among others.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) celebrated its sixth year with 28 full productions, a dance series, a developmental reading series, concerts, educational seminars, and other special events. Since its inception in 2004, this three-week annual festival has premiered more than 200 new musicals - many of which have gone on to award-winning productions in New York, in regional theaters and on tour in 43 states, and twelve countries worldwide. NYMF alumnus Altar Boyz has played almost 2000 performances off-Broadway and spawned two National Tours; fellow NYMF alums [title of show] and Next to Normal opened on Broadway in the 2008-2009 season, garnering a combined 12 Tony® nominations -- with Next to Normal winning three Tony Awards®, including Best Score.

The largest musical theatre event in America, NYMF has been hailed as "the Sundance of Musical Theatre," and is widely regarded as the key source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2009 is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Group and TheaterMania.com, and is supported by Back Stage, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Broadway.TV, Clear Channel Spectacolor, DFD-TV, Frank and Camille's Fine Pianos, King Displays, Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, New World Stages, NASDAQ OMX, Next Magazine, PMD Promotions, Queerty.com, Reuters, Sweet Caroline's, Tekserve, TheMenEvent.com, The Tank, and Times Square Squared. Major supporters include The ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., The Broadway League, The BWF Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Jaimie Mayer, The Charlie and Jane Fink Charitable Fund, The Mackintosh Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Theater League. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. NYMF's programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

For more information on the NYMF Festival, click here. 

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi

Photos of after-party: Credit © Steven Rosen