TV: Broadway Beat Meets the 2011 Drama Desk Nominees - Part 1

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Nominations for The 56th Annual Drama Desk Awards were announced on Friday, April 29, 2011, at 9:30 AM at the New York Friars Club, 57 East 55th Street, in Manhattan. Former Drama Desk Award winners Audra MacDonald and Liev Schreiber made the announcements. Other speakers included Isa Goldberg, President of the Drama Desk; Robert R. Blume, Executive Producer of the Drama Desk Awards; Barbara Siegel, chairperson of the Drama Desk Nominating Committee and Randie Levine-Miller, Director of Special Events for the Drama Desk, who has produced the nominations announcement ceremony at the NY Friars Club for the past 15 years.

Amongst the shows with multiple nominations were THE BOOK OF MORMON with 12, ANYTHING GOES with 10, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE with 7, BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SEE ROCK CITY & OTHER DESTINATIONS and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN with 6.

Broadway Beat was on hand for the nominee reception yesterday, May 2, and brings you meet and greet coverage of the 2011 nominees in attendance below!

The 56th Annual Drama Desk Awards, hosted by Harvey Fierstein, will be held Monday, May 23, at 9:00 PM at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan Center, 8th Avenue and 34th Street. This year, for the first time, a 90-minute Highlights Special of the Drama Desk Awards Ceremony will be televised nationally on OVATION, the national cable network dedicated to presenting creative arts programming to national TV audiences. The ceremony will be given two primetime broadcasts plus four other airings between June 4 and June 19, 2011.

The Drama Desk was founded in 1949 to explore key issues in the theater and to bring together critics and writers in an organization to support the ongoing development of theater in New York. The organization began presenting its awards in 1955, and it is the only critics' organization to honor achievement in the theater with competition between Broadway, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions in the same categories. The organization hosts panels throughout the year, to which the public is invited, to promote understanding and appreciation of the professional theater. For additional information about the Drama Desk and this year's awards show, visit www.DramaDesk.com and www.DramaDeskAwards.com.