Cady Huffman & Brian Stokes Mitchell to Announce 55th Annual Drama Desk Noms. 5/3; LuPone to Host Ceremony 5/23

Broadway stars Brian Stokes Mitchell and Cady Huffman will announce the nominees for the 55th Annual Drama Desk Awards on Monday, May 3 at the New York Friar's Club at 9:30am.

No strangers to accolades themselves, Huffman won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her role of Ulla in The Producers. She has also appeared on Broadway in La Cage Aux Folles, Big Deal, and The Will Rogers Follies, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

Mitchell is best known for his Tony and Drama Desk-winning role as FrEd Graham in Kiss Me Kate. He was also Tony- and Drama Desk-nominated for Man of La Mancha, Ragtime, and King Hedley II.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Patti LuPone, the winner of three Drama Desk Awards as Outstanding Actress in A Musical for her performances in Evita (1980), Anything Goes 1988) and Gypsy (2008), will host this year's 55thAnnual Drama Desk Awards ceremony on Sunday, May 23, 2010, at 9 PM, it was announced today by Robert R. Blume, Executive Producer of the annual awards show, and William Wolf, President of the Drama Desk. Ms. LuPone will host the ceremony from the stage of the LaGuardia Concert Hall at Lincoln Center.

The Drama Desk, an organization of theater critics, writers and editors that honors excellence in all areas of New York theatre, including Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway and not-for-profit theater was organized in 1949. The organization presented its first awards in 1955.

Patti LuPone swept the 2008 theater awards winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Musical and Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for her memorable performance as Rose in the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy.

She also received a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in Evita, a Tony nomination as Best Actress in a Musical for Anything Goes, an Outer Critics Circle Award for her one-woman show, Patti LuPone On Broadway, and Olivier Awards as Best Actress in a Musical for her West End performances in Les Miserables and The Cradle Will Rock. She also created the role of Norma Desmond in the West End production of Sunset Boulevard (1993), for which she won an Olivier nomination, as Best Actress in A Musical.

Ms LuPone‘s recent stage credits include her debut with the Los Angeles Opera in Weill-Brecht's Mahagonny (the CD recording of that production won two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Recording and Best Opera Recording), the world premiere of Jake Heggie's new opera To Hell and Back with San Francisco's Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle's award-winning Broadway production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, for which she garnered Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical, Fosca in a concert version of Sondheim's Passion, which was also broadcast on PBS' Live From Lincoln Center, and a multi-city tour of her theatrical concert Matters of the Heart. 

The 2009/2010 Nominating Committee for the Drama Desk Awards includes: Barbara Siegel (Chairperson) TalkinBroadway.com, TheaterMania.com; Christopher Byrne, Gay City News; Patrick Christiano, TheaterLife.com, Dan's Papers; David Kaufman, freelance and author; Gerard Raymond, Back Stage, The Advocate; Richard Ridge, Broadway Beat TV; and PaulAnne Simmons, CurtainUp.com, NY Theatre-wire.com.

Robert R. Blume is Executive Producer of the 55th Annual Drama Desk Awards, which will be co-presented by Theatermania.com, and Blume Media Group Ltd is the producing company. Lauren Class Schneider is Producer and Jeff Kalpak is Director of the Awards ceremony. For the production, the Associate Producers are Joseph Callari, Ellis Nassour and Les Schecter, who also serves as Director of Publicity and Promotions. Randie Levine-Miller is Special Events Director for the Drama Desk.

The Board of Directors of the Drama Desk is composed of William Wolf, President; Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Vice President; Charles Wright, Treasurer and 2nd Vice President; Richard Ridge, Secretary,

For more information and tickets, visit www.dramadesk.com.

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski, Walter McBride