61st Annual Drama Desk Awards to be Held at The Town Hall in June; Nominations Date Set!

The 61st Annual Drama Desk Awards will be held Sunday, June 5, 2016 at 8:00 PM at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street), it was announced today by Charles Wright, Drama Desk President and Gretchen Shugart, CEO of TheaterMania.com.

The Drama Desk Awards nominations announcement will take place on Thursday, April 28th at Feinstein's/54 Below at 10:00am.

Ms. Shugart is the Managing ExecutiveProducer of the Drama Desk Awards. The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway compete against each other in the same category.

"For almost 61 years, the Drama Desk has been honoring professional achievement at all levels of New York theater," said Charles Wright. "Every spring, the Drama Desk Awards ceremony offers an occasion to celebrate outstanding work in what is unquestionably the most vibrant theater community in our country and perhaps the world."

Joey Parnes Productions will produce and manage the show. The Awards show will be written by Bill Rosenfield and directed by Jack Cummings III (co-founder and artistic director of Transport Group).

The Drama Desk Awards, which are presented annually, honor outstanding achievement by professional theater artists on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway. What sets Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by theater critics, journalists, editors and publishers covering theater, without any vested interest in the results. For this reason, Drama Desk Awards reflect both enthusiasm for all aspects of New York's professional theater and a level of erudition and theatrical experience unparalleled in our industry's other prize-giving organizations.

The 2015-2016 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of: David Barbour, Chair (Lighting & Sound America); Peter Filichia (Broadway Select, author, most recently, of The Great Parade: The Remarkable 1963-64 Broadway Season); David Finkle (Blogger, Huffington Post; Clyde Fitch Report);Sandy MacDonald (Time Out New York, TheaterNewsOnline.com); Andy Propst(AmericanTheaterWeb.com, author, You Fascinate Me So: The Life & Times of Cy Coleman); Diane Snyder (Cititour.com, Time Out New York); Douglas Strassler (Garden State Journal); Charles Wright(President, Drama Desk), ex officio.

The 2015-2016 Board of Directors of the Drama Desk is composed of: Charles Wright (A+E Networks) President; Richard Ridge (BroadwayWorld.com), 1st Vice President; Lauren Yarger (Manchester Journal-Inquirer, reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com), 2nd Vice President; Edward Karam(offoffonline.com), Treasurer; David Barbour (Lighting & Sound America), Chair, Awards Nominating Committee; Leslie (Hoban) Blake (Two on the Aisle/MNN), Historian; Arlene Epstein (Richner Communications/South Shore Record, liherald.com); Elysa Gardner (USA Today); Isa Goldberg (East Hampton Independent, Southampton Press); John Istel (Managing editor, DramaDesk.org; freelance arts editor and journalist); David Kaufman (author and freelance); Andy Lefkowitz(TheaterMania); William Wolf (Adjunct professor, NYU, WolfEntertainmentGuide.com)