With their wins Monday at the New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, Tom Stoppard's play trilogy "The Coast of Utopia" and tuner "Spring Awakening" are now clear frontrunners in the best play and musical categories when Tony Award nominations are announced next Tuesday.

While the musical about teenage angst in turn-of-the-last-century Germany was favored by 17 of the 20 Gotham theater scribes, the British playwright of "Utopia" faced stiff competition from the late American author August Wilson, whose final play, "Radio Golf," opens on Broadway Tuesday night.

Indeed, voting had to go to a third round before a winner emerged, with Stoppard taking his sixth best-play prize and Wilson's work, the last of his ambitious 10-play cycle about the African American experience, receiving the consolation prize of best American play. The Circle's website offers a fascinating insight into the voting process — CLICK HERE.

Wilson has long been a favorite of the critics, with six of his plays receiving the top honor and another two placing second. However, he has had far less success at the Tonys, winning only once, for "Fences," out of eight nominations. Stoppard, by contrast, has three Tonys from five nods.

By awarding both prizes for best play and a best foreign/American runnerup (depending on the nationality of the winning playwright), the Circle doubles their chances at matching up with the single play honored at the Tonys. However, because they also consider off Broadway productions, which do not compete at the Tonys, the Circle has predicted the Tony winner only 38 times in the last 60 years.