Kathleen Turner Will Announce Nominations For the 68th Drama Desk Awards Next Week

Stage and screen's Kathleen Turner will announce the nominations for the 68th Annual Drama Desk Awards next week. The announcement will be made live on NBC’S New York Live on Monday, April 29 in the 11:30am half hour. Kathleen will also chat about the awards and her upcoming projects.

This year’s awards will be held on Monday, June 10 at The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (556 LaGuardia Place). Drama Desk co-presidents David Barbour and Charles Wrightalso announced that the cutoff for this year’s awards is April 25. “We extend our gratitude to Kathleen Turner, a legendary actor who has performed both on Broadway and off, for kicking off what we know will be an exciting Drama Desk Awards period. The sheer number of noteworthy performances this season is extraordinary.”

“We are particularly honored to executive-produce this year’s Drama Desk Awards which celebrates the tremendous abundance of creativity gracing our New York stages,” said co-Executive Producers Staci Levine and Jessica R. Jenen. “It has been a remarkable season on Broadway and Off, and we are thrilled to honor all nominees who grace our New York stages in this theater industry-inclusive event.”

Additional details will be announced shortly.

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater awards for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same categories.

As was the case last year, all performance categories will be gender-free. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Leading Performance in a Play, Outstanding Leading Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical. 

Each of these categories will have twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.

What sets the Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by theater critics, journalists, editors, and publishers covering theater. The Drama Desk Awards honor all aspects of New York’s professional theater.

The 2023-2024 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of: Martha Wade Steketee(Chair; freelance: UrbanExcavations.com), Linda Armstrong (New York Amsterdam News), Daniel Dinero (Theatre is Easy), Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio), Kenji Fujishima (freelance: Theatermania), Margaret Hall (Playbill) and Charles Wright, ex-officio.