Debra Messing and Tituss Burgess to Host The 2025 Drama Desk Awards

Stage and screen stars Debra Messing and Tituss Burgess will host the 2025 Annual Drama Desk Awards, benefitting the Entertainment Community Fund, on Sunday, June 1 beginning at 6:15PM at NYU Skirball.
 
Debra Messing recently starred in Shit. Meet. Fan. at MCC Theater and has starred on Broadway in Birthday Candles and Outside Mullingar. Debra starred in the series’ Smash and The Mysteries of Laura and was recently seen in the mob drama The Alto Knights with Robert De Niro. She is best known for her role of Grace Adler in the comedy series Will & Grace for which she won an Emmy and SAG Ensemble Award for her performance, among 50 other award nominations.
 
Tituss Burgess recently starred on Broadway in a sold-out limited engagement of Oh Mary! He has also appeared on Broadway in Good Vibrations, Jersey Boys, The Little Mermaid, Guys and Dolls, and Moulin Rouge!  The Musical! He is best known for his role as Titus Andromedon in Netflix’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt series and film (nominations for 5 consecutive Emmy Awards, a SAG Award, and two Critics’ Choice TV Awards). David Barbour and Charles Wright are the Drama Desk co-presidents.
 
The creative team for this year’s Drama Desk Awards has also been announced. Lorin Latarro (The Who’s Tommy; The Heart of Rock and Roll; The Producers in the West End) returns as director of the evening and Steve Rosen and David Rossmer (The Other Josh Cohen) will again be writing the show. Musical direction is by Dan Lipton, lighting design is by Abby May, production management & sound design is by Five Ohm, and video design is by Ido Levran (The Lifespan of a Fact), Ira Mont (Jagged Little Pill) is the production stage manager.
  
Tickets are now on sale. 100% of net proceeds from the Drama Desk Awards benefits the Entertainment Community Fund.  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 are gender-free. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical.