Before the nailbiting, speechwriting and false modesty ensues, Tony Award nominees have one afternoon to smile, pose for photos, converse with fellow honorees and chow down. The annual Tony Award Nominees Brunch will take place this year at the Marriot Marquis's Astor Ballroom, May 12 at 11:30 PM.

Expected to receive their certificates at the event are such nominees as Judi Dench, Kevin Spacey, Corin Redgrave, Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat and Dee Hoty. Representatives of the League of American Theaters and Producers, the American Theater Wing, CBS and PBS will also be on hand.

Parade, Fosse, Nightingales and Death of a Salesman led the Tony nominations for the 1998-99 season, which were announced at Sardi's on the morning of May 3.

Parade topped the list with nine nominations, including nods for best musical, best score, best book, and its two stars, Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello. The Bob Fosse revue, Fosse, was also nominated for best musical. Death of the Salesman and Not About Nightingales both garnered six nods.

Also announced at the event: there will be multiple hosts for The Tonys this year. Rather than endowing Broadway's biggest annual broadcast to just one person, numerous celebs will share the task. As of May 6, the actual list is still to be announced. Actress Uta Hagen, playwright Arthur Miller, American Theatre Wing chairman Isabelle Stevenson and Fool Moon will receive special Tonys. The regional theater Tony Award will go to Crossroads Theatre of New Brunswick, NJ.

Among productions of note to not receive a Tony nod -- no David Hare play (including Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, and Amy's View) was nominated for Best New Play. Also, despite being the longest running new musical of the season, Footloose was not among those up for best new musical.

The Tony Awards will be held Sunday, June 6, at the Gershwin Theater. The show will begin at 8 PM (broadcast, for the third year in a row, on PBS-TV) and continue from 9-11 PM, broadcast on CBS TV. Though relations between Tony co-producers the American Theater Wing and the League of American Theatres & Producers had long been rancorous, they recently patched things up and signed a new contract reaching to 2004. CBS, also, has renewed its contract for the Tonys through that year.

A complete list of nominations follows:

Best New Play:
Closer by Patrick Marber
Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh
Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams
Side Man by Warren Leight

Best New Musical:
The Civil War
Fosse
It Ain't Nothing But the Blues
Parade

Best Revival of a Musical:
Annie Get Your Gun
Little Me
Peter Pan
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Best Revival of a Play:
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Electra by Euripides
The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Best Book of a Musical
Footloose, Dean Pitchford & Walter Bobbie
It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues, Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor & Dan Wheetman
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