Brian Bedford's Earnest vies for 3 Tony Awards

Brian Bedford's Broadwayrun of The Importance of Being Earnest, based on a 2009 production at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario,has earned three Tony Award nominations, including best revival and best actor for Bedford.

Nominations for the 65th annual Tony Awards, given for the best in New York theatre, were released Tuesday morning by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.

The Book of Mormon, the show from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, dominated Tony Awardnominations with 14, followed by The Scottsboro Boys with 12.

Bedford is a British-born actor who hasplayed leading roles on the Stratford stage since 1974. In The Importance of Being Earnest, he both directs and stars as the formidable Lady Bracknellin a performance that earned him a best actor Tony nomination.

He first directed and starred in the Oscar Wilde classic in 2009 in Stratford, Ont. Bedford returns to the Stratford Festival this yearto appear in The Misanthrope.

Veteran designer Desmond Heeley has scored a nomination for best costume design for the production. The play at New York's Roundabout Theatre Company was extended by four months to July 3 after delighting New York audiences.

In the best revival category, The Importance of Being Earnest is competing with Arcadia, The Merchant of Venice and The Normal Heart.

South Park creators

The Scottsboro Boys, based on a 1930s court case of nine African-American men unjustly accused of attacking two white women, is competing with The Book of Mormon in the best musical category. Other musicals vying for the honour include Catch Me If You Can and Sister Act.

The Book of Mormon, an irreverent coming-of-age story of two Mormon boys, has performance nominations for Rory O'Malley, Nikki M. James, Josh Gad and Andrew Ravnells and a best score nod for Parker, Stone and Robert Lopez.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, a musical co-production back by Toronto's Mirvish Productions, has two nominations, including best actor for Tony Sheldon.

War Horse, a West End hit scheduled to debut in Toronto in 2012 as part of Mirvish Theatre season, garnered a special award for the Handspring Puppet Company, as South African group which creates the animals in the production. It is the story of a boy who follows his horse into the battlefields of France during the First World War.

War Horse is nominated for best play, along with David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem and Stephen Adly Guirgis's The Motherf***er with the Hat.

Big names get nominations

New York's theatre scene has attracted dozens of big name actors in the past few years and some of them are vying for Tony Awards in 2011, among them:

• Al Pacino, best actor in The Merchant of Venice.
• Frances McDormand, best actress in Good People.
• Vanessa Redgrave, best actress in Driving Miss Daisy.
• Edie Falco, featured actress in The House of Blue Leaves.
• Billy Crudup, featured actor in Arcadia.
• John Larroquette, featured actor in a musical in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

The Tony Award winners will be named June 12 in New York.