‘Piano Lesson,’ ‘Angels’ the Shows to Beat : Broadway: This year’s Tony Awards cap one of the busiest theater seasons in years. There were several top contenders in each category.

“The Piano Lesson” and “City of Angels” were the shows to beat Sunday night for top Tony honors as Broadway celebrated the best of a busy theater season.

“The Piano Lesson,” August Wilson’s drama about a black family confronting its past, already has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle award. Its strongest competition for best play comes from “The Grapes of Wrath,” Frank Galati’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s epic novel about 1930s Dust Bowl Okies. But Galati is favored to win the director award for his work on the play, a production from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company.

Less likely candidates for best play were Peter Shaffer’s comedy “Lettice & Lovage” and “Prelude to a Kiss,” a modern-day fantasy by Craig Lucas.

“City of Angels,” a musical satire of 1940s Hollywood and hard-boiled detective fiction, should take the top musical awards, including the best musical prize.

“Grand Hotel,” Tommy Tune’s musical recreation of Vicki Baum’s novel set in Berlin of the late 1920s, was a close competitor. Tune could take home two Tonys--for direction of a musical and one for choreography. Expected to be shut out were the two other best musical candidates, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” based on the famous Judy Garland movie, and “Aspects of Love,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest show.

Robert Morse’s portrayal of writer Truman Capote in “Tru” could win him the best actor Tony. His competition includes Charles S. Dutton of “The Piano Lesson”; Tom Hulce, who already has left the cast of “A Few Good Men,” and Dustin Hoffman, who starred as Shylock in a revival of “The Merchant of Venice.”

The best actress category was one of the most highly competitive in years. Maggie Smith was the favorite for her portrayal of an eccentric tour guide in “Lettice & Lovage.” Other contenders include Kathleen Turner of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and Mary-Louise Parker of “Prelude to a Kiss.”

Alfred Drake, the robust baritone of such Broadway hits as “Kiss Me, Kate,” “Oklahoma!” and “Kismet,” was awarded a special Tony honor for excellence. The Seattle Repertory Theater was given the Tony for outstanding regional theater.

The 1989-90 season was one of the busiest in recent years. Compared with the previous season, which produced only one big musical--”Jerome Robbins’ Broadway”--and one big play--”The Heidi Chronicles,” this year brought more than enough candidates for most Tony categories.

In fact, several likely candidates for nominations were ignored, including Vanessa Redgrave for “Orpheus Descending” and the trio of stars from the revival of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle”--Glynis Johns, Stewart Granger, and the late Rex Harrison, who died of cancer Saturday, less than a month after his last performance in the play.