`Spring' in the Tonys' step

NEW YORK — Signaling a possible breakthrough for a new generation of composers whose bona fides are not in theater but in rock, "Spring Awakening," a musical hailed for bringing a fresh and authentic rock edge to a 19th century German tale about teenagers' sexual angst, received 11 Tony nominations Tuesday. Right behind with 10 was another new musical with an unorthodox approach: "Grey Gardens," about two off-kilter relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

"The Coast of Utopia," Tom Stoppard's heady, three-part epic drama about 19th century Russian revolutionaries, led the play nominees with 10 nods.

The best new musical category now shapes up as a showdown between the experimentalists who led the nominations and two traditional shows: "Curtains," a backstage whodunit that premiered last year at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre had eight nominations, and Disney's "Mary Poppins" had seven. Winners will be announced in a CBS telecast June 10.

"Theater is this incredible medium that was not getting its message out to the widest possible audience," said Duncan Sheik, who composed the music for "Spring Awakening" after first establishing himself as a touring rock singer-songwriter, known especially for the hit "Barely Breathing."

"I started thinking, 'What if you ... put music to it that a twentysomething might be listening to on their iPod?' "

"The Coast of Utopia" will fight it out with another British play, "Frost/Nixon," about the 1977 television interview between the British TV personality and the disgraced U.S. president, and an American drama freighted with a sentimental tug: August Wilson was dying of cancer in 2005 as he finished "Radio Golf," the last drama in his 10-play cycle about African American life in the 20th century. Also in the running is "The Little Dog Laughed," Douglas Carter Beane's satire about a budding film star who is a closted gay, which closed in February.

Wilson, who was making changes and leaving additional instructions while "Radio Golf" ended its run at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum shortly before his death, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a Tony for his earthy portrayals of everyday people in Pittsburgh. In Stoppard, he faces one of the stage's leading depictors of soaring intellectuals.

"We all feel we're carrying the flag for this man who did so much," said Jack Viertel, one of the producers of "Radio Golf."