A Catered Affair, a musical about family relationships and the meaning of love, leads with 12 nominations in the 53rd Annual Drama Desk Awards.

Others at the front of the line include:

  • Adding Machine with nine.
  • The revival of the musical South Pacific, which is is neck-and-neck at eight with Young Frankenstein.
  • Four with seven nods each: August: Osage County, Passing Strange, Sunday in the Park with George and The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island.
Actors, Leslie Kritzer, left, and Faith Prince portray daughter and mother in a scene from A Catered Affair, playing at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. Actors, Leslie Kritzer, left, and Faith Prince portray daughter and mother in a scene from A Catered Affair, playing at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. (Jim Cox/M Company/AP)

Four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein created the book for A Catered Affair, directed by John Doyle. Fierstein, 55, last captured a Tony for best leading actor in a musical in 2003 for his turn as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray.

A Catered Affair, set in the Bronx in 1953, is described as both a funny and heartbreaking story about a couple who must decide whether to spend their life savings on a family business or on a lavish dinner to launch their only daughter's marriage.

The production, which also stars Fierstein, includes actors Faith Prince and Tom Wopat, who may be best remembered as starring on the 1980s TV hit The Dukes of Hazzard.

Wopat is no stranger to the stage, having appeared on Broadway back in the 1970s and was nominated for a Tony in 1999 for playing Frank Butler in the revival of Annie Get Your Gun.

This year, the Drama Desk will bestow special ensemble awards for acting to the casts of two shows —The Dining Room, which played off-Broadway, and The Homecoming on Broadway.

As well, the awards have singled out playwright Edward Albee, 80 and actor James Earl Jones for lifetime achievement honours.

The Drama Desk, which was founded in 1949, honours both Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

The awards will be handed out in New York City on May 18.

Other major nominations include:

Outstanding Play:

  • Intimate Exchanges.
  • Horizon.
  • From Up Here.
  • Dividing the Estate.
  • August: Osage County.
  • Rock 'n' Roll.

Outstanding Musical:

  • A Catered Affair.
  • Adding Machine.
  • Passing Strange.
  • The Glorious Ones.
  • The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island.
  • Xanadu.

Outstanding Actor in a Play:

  • Bill Champion, Intimate Exchanges.
  • Kevin Kline, Cyrano de Bergerac.
  • Bill Pullman, Peter and Jerry.
  • Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing.
  • Tobias Segal, From Up Here.
  • Rufus Sewell, Rock 'n' Roll.

Outstanding Actress in a Play:

  • Sinead Cusack, Rock 'n' Roll.
  • Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County.
  • Frances McDormand, The Country Girl.
  • Amy Morton, August: Osage County.
  • Fiona Shaw, Happy Days.
  • Julie White, From Up Here.