The Great White Way is moving to the Upper West Side — for one night, at least.
Broadway’s Tony Awards will be broadcast next June from the Beacon Theater, its first time away from Radio City Music Hall in over a decade, organizers said Wednesday.
The move, which was necessitated by a new Cirque du Soleil show taking up residence at Radio City in midtown Manhattan, is a chance to give the staid awards a “fresh feel, new set and a clean palette,” executive producers Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner said in a statement.
The Beacon Theater is approximately 25 blocks north of the main cluster of Broadway theaters grouped around Times Square.
Far fewer people will be able to take in the Tonys in person. The Beacon can fit 2,894 attendees, compared to nearly 6,000 for Radio City, which hosted the ceremony for all but one year between 1997 and 2010.
It remains to be seen if a new locale will bolster ratings for the telecast on CBS.
Approximately seven million people tuned in to see “Memphis” win Best Musical this year; 13 million watched “Titanic” take the prize in 1997.