The 65th Annual Drama Desk Awards to be presented online

Nominations for this year's ceremony are still expected to be announced on April 21, 2020.

The Drama Desk organization has confirmed that The 65th Annual Drama Desk Awards ceremony, originally scheduled to take place at The Town Hall, will now be presented online on Sunday, May 31, 2020.

Drama Desk Co-Presidents Charles Wright and David Barbour commented: "New York theater is caught in a moment of exceptional uncertainty. In the face of this, the mission of the Drama Desk - recognizing the thousands of artists and craftspeople who make up our community - has never been more urgent. We are committed to honoring the outstanding work of this season as best we can, with safety the highest priority."

In addition, this year's awards will be presented in honor of William Wolf, former Drama Desk president and longtime film and theater critic, who sadly died last month following COVID-19 complications.

The Drama Desk has adopted a revised 2019-2020 season end date of March 11, and is upholding the previously reported date of April 21 for the nominations announcements.

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 among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions in the same categories.

Previous Drama Desk Award winners include the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bernadette Peters, Cynthia Erivo, Nathan Lane, Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, Bette Midler, Danny DeVito, Cynthia Nixon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Helen Mirren.

The Drama Desk Awards are presented by the Drama Desk organization in partnership with Broadway Brands.