Photo Flash: LaChanze, White, et al. at BWAY AT THE BOATHOUSE

Tony Award-winner Dick Latessa, and Chairman of the Board, gathered Broadway stars to help raise funds for Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY) which uses theatre to help New York's most vulnerable children and adults. This year's annual gala, Broadway at the Boathouse...Ovation, was held at the Loeb Central Park Boathouse on Monday evening, May 16, 2011. The 2011 Honorees were Tony Award-winner Cady Huffman (The Producers) and Dr. Hillel Swiller, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Festivities began at 6:30 p.m. with cocktails, buffet dinner, silent auction and musical performances by Tony Award-winner LaChanze (The Color Purple) and Tony Award Nominee & cabaret chanteuse Ann Hampton Callaway (Swing)

For over 25 years, Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY) has been helping children and adults across the New York Metropolitan area whose lives have been fragmented by trauma and mental health challenges by using the art of theatre as a therapeutic tool - helping them to imagine and envision new possibilities and discover their potential for change. Working in partnership with leading social service organizations and health care institutions, CANY provides approximately 1,400 therapeutic theater groups annually in residential centers for children, special schools, psychiatric care facilities, domestic violence safe shelters and community centers serving at risk youth.

Photo credit: Ben Strothman