Photo Coverage: 2009 Drama Desk Awards - Presentation 2

Multiple Drama Desk and Tony Award winning actor/writer Harvey Fierstein was host for the 54th Annual Drama Desk Awards ceremony. BroadwayWorld's cameras were there for the award celebration!

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. In addition to honoring creative artists and stage productions in multiple categories, the Drama Desk annually presents scholarships to two worthy seniors in the Drama Department of the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts who are planning careers in the theater.

Photos by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.