"Wicked," a big-budget, family pleasing spectacle that tells the story of Oz from the witches' perspective, led the field with 10 Tony Award nominations yesterday, including best musical and acting nominations for its two leading witches, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.

"Assassins," the darkly comic 1991 musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman about singing sociopaths, received seven nominations, including best revival of a musical and best direction, by Joe Mantello, who also directed "Wicked."

Multiple nominations also went to the three other nominees for best musical: "Avenue Q," a comic Off Broadway musical about the inner lives of puppets that transferred to Broadway last summer and picked up six nominations, including best score and book; "Caroline, Or Change," a civil rights-themed show and another Off Broadway transfer, which also picked up six nominations, including for Jeanine Tesori's score and Tony Kushner's book and lyrics; and "The Boy From Oz," a glossy biographical look at the life of the singer Peter Allen (played on Broadway by Hugh Jackman), which received five nominations.

On the dramatic side, four productions were nominated for best play, including two — "Anna in the Tropics" by Nilo Cruz and "I Am My Own Wife" by Doug Wright — that have already won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The other two nominees were written by British playwrights: "Frozen" by Bryony Lavery and "The Retreat From Moscow" by William Nicholson.

While nominations can improve a show's lot, omission or underachievement can also signal trouble for productions. Among the shows that were smarting yesterday was "Bombay Dreams," a $14 million production that got three nominations but no nod for best musical. Producers of "Little Shop of Horrors," the cult musical about a killer plant, were also disappointed not to receive a nomination for best revival.

Founded in 1947, the Tony Awards, which will be broadcast on CBS on June 6 with Mr. Jackman as host, function both as Broadway's highest artistic honor and as its most visible marketing tool. The awards show is often the one time that Americans outside of New York are exposed to Broadway. The nominations often result in a burst of advertising for shows, and this year many will have multiple nominations to announce. Twelve productions had at least four nominations, a sign of a remarkably democratic nomination year.

There are 735 eligible Tony voters, including members of theatrical organizations, touring companies, reporters, critics and regional producers, many of whom will trek to New York in coming weeks to see shows and be wooed by producers.

The Tonys represent only Broadway, ignoring swaths of regional, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions, but commercial and nonprofit producers alike covet the awards as useful tools for marketing, subscriber and capital campaigns and launching pads for lucrative national tours. The flip side of this equation, however, is the increasing pressure on nonprofit productions to qualify for Tonys by opening on or moving to Broadway, an often risky financial proposition.

In recent years respected nonprofit companies like the Public Theater have lost millions of dollars with ill-advised Broadway productions like "On the Town" and "The Wild Party."

Still, nonprofit companies have been increasingly successful at the Tonys and were well represented in this year's nominations by "Caroline, Or Change," "I Am My Own Wife," "Frozen," "Anna in the Tropics" and "Avenue Q." Lincoln Center Theater, the nation's largest nonprofit theater, received two nominations in a single category — best revival of a play — for its productions of "King Lear" and "Henry IV."

The two other nominees in that category were the British revival of Tom Stoppard's esoteric farce "Jumpers" and a remounting of Lorraine Hansberry's classic 1959 drama "A Raisin in the Sun," a commercial venture starring the rap mogul Sean Combs. Mr. Combs was not nominated, though his co-stars Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan and Audra McDonald all were. Ms. Rashad received a nomination for best actress in a play, and Ms. Lathan and Ms. McDonald were nominated for best featured actress in a play.