Tonys Think Smaller for 2011 Awards

New home, Beacon Theater, has half as many seats as Radio City Music Hall

The 65th Annual Tony Awards have booked the Beacon Theater — a beautiful, acoustically flawless venue on Manhattan's Upper West Side — for next year's June 12 ceremony, CBS announced Wednesday.

The hall has hosted the Rolling Stones, Dalai Lama, and a famed annual residency by the Allman Brothers. All that's missing are seats: Its capacity of about 2,800 is half that of Radio City Music Hall, the Tonys' longtime home.

One solution: This year, just honor a lot of two-person plays.

The reason for the move is a booking at Radio City Music Hall by Cirque du Soleil. The all-human circus is becoming a live-event spoiler in New York: Another Cirque du Soleil production bumped the Allmans from their annual residency at the Beacon last year.

The three-hour ceremony will air on CBS at 8 p.m.

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