New York, June 11:

Spring Awakening,” a rollicking rock musical about a group of hormonally charged adolescents, swept Broadway’s annual awards spectacular, the Tony Awards, in New York late on June 10.

The angst-ridden erotic romp, which even composer Duncan Sheik said was a “strange conception of a musical,” picked up eight awards including the coveted best musical and best original score. “ “We thank you for conceiving a Broadway musical that rocks, that makes you laugh and cry and think, a show that speaks from the heart and that touches audiences of every age and every generation,” said producer Ira Pittelman, accepting the award and thanking the writers.

“All we set out to do was to tell our story the way we thought it should be told,” said Michael

Mayer, accepting the best direction award at the glittering gala ceremony at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

“The Coast of Utopia,” a marathon nine-hour trilogy set among a group of philosophers in 19th century Russia meanwhile won best play for Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard, and in the best featured actor and actress categories. “I feel a bit nostalgic actually, because this year it’s 40 years since I first came here with a play and I’m sentimental enough to want to start by thanking the New York Theatre for having me, for good times and good friends,” Stoppard said.

“I know what Everest feels like,” added Jack O’Brien, who picked up the best direction of a play award for the historical drama. Frank Langella took home the best actor in a play award for his performance as late president Richard Nixon in “Frost/Nixon,” a dramatisation of the scandal-plagued president’s 1977 grilling by British journalist David Frost.

“Thank you for giving me that indescribable feeling. I wish it for you all,” said Langella, who was picking up his third Tony award.

David Hyde Pierce, best known as Niles, the younger brother of Frasier Crane in television comedy “Frasier,” picked up the best actor in a musical award for “Curtains,” a comedy murder mystery.

Grey Gardens, a musical about the reclusive lives of a cousin and an eccentric aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, picked up three awards, including best actress in a musical for Christine Ebersole.