NEW YORK — For the second time in just a few years, a musical that originated in Seattle shone at the Tony Awards. The first was "Hairspray," launched at the 5th Avenue Theatre in 2002.

"The Light in the Piazza," which had its world premiere at Seattle's Intiman Theatre in 2003, collected six Tonys — the most for any show of the past season, when Broadway's coveted prizes were bestowed in a nationally telecast ceremony last night.

As expected, the box-office smash "Monty Python's Spamalot" took the prize for best musical, and it also earned two other prizes (one for director Mike Nichols, the other for featured performer Sara Ramirez).

But "The Light in the Piazza" was rewarded with Tonys for best musical score (by Adam Guettel), best leading actress (Victoria Clark), best orchestrations (by Guettel, Ted Sperling and Bruce Coughlin), best costumes (by Catherine Zuber), lighting (by Christopher Akerlind) and sets (by Michael Yeargan, who designed the Broadway production but not the Seattle sets).

"We did great, and got all the [Tonys] we were hoping to get," said jubilant Intiman artistic director Bartlett Sher, who received his first Tony nomination this year for directing "The Light in the Piazza" but lost to Nichols.

Though honored to be nominated personally, Sher said he was more thrilled that "Piazza," a story of a mother and her lovestruck daughter on an Italian sojourn in the 1950s, has overcome mixed reviews to become one of the most celebrated Broadway shows of the past season.

In contrast to the other new musicals on Broadway this season, all of which were comedies, "our show tells a serious story without irony or shtick," Sher noted. "That's a great tradition for Broadway musicals, and it's exciting to keep it alive."

"Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's drama of suspicion and certainty set in a parochial school in the Bronx, won the 2005 Tony for best new play.

The season's most honored play, it already had picked up the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several other top play prizes.

"Doubt" also captured two acting Tonys — for star Cherry Jones and for featured performer Adriane Lenox. Jones, winning her second best-actress Tony, was honored for her fierce, yet often funny portrait of a determined, unrelenting nun. Lenox plays the mother of a boy who may have been molested by a priest.

And Doug Hughes, the former associate artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, earned his first Tony for directing Shanley's play.

"It must seem like a wild act of Oedipal revenge for the son of two actors to become a director, but I assure you that's not the case," said an emotional Hughes, the son of theater veterans Barnard Hughes and Helen Stenborg.

An actor well-known to Seattle audiences also triumphed. Bill Irwin, who has often developed and performed shows at Seattle Repertory Theatre, captured the lead actor in a play prize for his portrayal of the henpecked George in a blistering revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Norbert Leo Butz, an exuberantly obnoxious con man in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," captured the prize for actor/musical.

"I feel like crying because when I heard my name, I just got the joke," Butz said. "No way that someone with my name ... could be in Radio City Music Hall holding one of these."

"The Pillowman," the closest competitor for "Doubt," won two design/play awards: for sets and lighting.

The costume/play award went to "The Rivals."

The choreography prize was taken by Jerry Mitchell for the athletic dances he created for the revival of "La Cage aux Folles," which also won the prize for musical revival.

The play-revival award went to a production of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross."

"I feel like Rocky right now," said Dan Fogler, who got the prize for his portrayal of the nasally challenged but expert wordsmith in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

"I was going to dance up here," said Fogler, whose talented feet spell out words in "Spelling Bee," and then thanked his parents for their support — and "the DNA."

Liev Schreiber took the featured actor/play prize for his portrayal of a sleazy real-estate salesman in "Glengarry Glen Ross."

"To be part of this ensemble is an amazing experience for me," Schreiber said of the other actors in his show, which includes Tony nominees Alan Alda and Gordon Clapp. "I'm so grateful."

The musical-book prize was won by newcomer Rachel Sheinkin, who wrote "Spelling Bee."

Billy Crystal walked out to open the show at Radio City Music Hall and launched into a monologue as if he were hosting — as he has at the Academy Awards.

"Welcome to the 59th annual Tony awards, or as CBS calls them: 'CSI: Broadway,' " he said.

But Crystal got a cellphone call from Hugh Jackman, the show's real host, who wrested the hosting duties from him.

The Associated Press and Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson contributed to this report.