Nominations for Broadway's top theatre honors, the Tony Awards, have been announced Tuesday encouraging smaller productions such as the original hip-hop, salsa flavored musical "In the Heights."

Written by 28-year-ol Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also stars in the play about the life of a group of immigrant dreamers in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, "In the Heights" earned 13 nominations including best musical, best original score, best performance by a featured actor in a musical for Miranda, and best direction of a musical for Thomas Kail.

Next in line is the much-heralded first ever Broadway revival of the iconic "Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific," musical which was nominated for 11 categories.

Other revivals such as "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Gypsy" also racked up abundant nominations: "Sunday" got nine while "Gypsy" earned seven, including one for Arthur Laurents, 90, who wrote the book for the show in 1959 and directed this production.

Competing against "In the Heights" for best new musical award are "Passing Strange," "Xanadu," and "Cry-Baby."

Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning family drama "August: Osage County", which was named best play by the New York Drama Critics' Circle on Monday, topped the straight-play category with seven nods.

Two of the season's most expensive musical productions, "The New Mel Brooks' Musical Young Frankenstein" and Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid" were snubbed from the main categories receiving only five nominations between them.

Star-studded plays like Mike Nichols’ production of "The Country Girl," with Morgan Freeman, "A Bronx Tale" with Chazz Palminteri and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with James Earl Jones and Terrence Howard, were shut out completely.

Famous stars also got a cold shoulder form nominators. Claire Danes, Jennifer Garner, Kevin Kline, Harvey Fierstein, Laura Linney, James Earl Jones, Terrence Howard and Nathan Lane were all left off the roster of nominees.

The awards ceremony which will be hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and broadcasted on CBS, will take place at Radio City Music Hall on June 15, featuring the mixture of nominees for highly praised dramatic revivals such as "Macbeth" and "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," along with well-known musicals, such as "Gypsy" and "Sunday in the Park with George." Stephen Sondheim is set to be honored with a lifetime achievement prize.

The honors were announced by David Hyde Pierce and Sara Ramirez at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The complete list of nominations can be found at www.tonyawards.com.