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NEW YORK (AP) - Neil Patrick Harris has given way to Hugh Jackman at the Tony Awards.
Producers of the annual telecast celebrating the best of Broadway said Tuesday that Jackman will once again take up hosting duties for the next awards on June 8 at Radio City Music Hall.
It will be Jackman's fourth time hosting the Tonys. He previously emceed the show from 2003-2005.
Jackman, best known for being the hairy Wolverine in "The X-Men" franchise, was last on Broadway with a one-man show in 2011 that routinely sold out the 1,176-seat Broadhurst Theatre and usually posted weekly grosses of $1.5 million.
It was his third time on the Great White Way, following "The Boy From Oz" in 2003 and the play "A Steady Rain" with Daniel Craig in 2009. He had hoped to be back in the musical "Houdini" but he pulled out of that project.
Jackman's other stage credits include Australian productions of "Sunset Boulevard" and "Beauty and the Beast." In London he starred as Curly in Trevor Nunn's staging of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" He also was in the Oscar-nominated film "Les Miserables" directed by Tom Hooper.
The official eligibility cut-off date for the Tonys this year will be April 24, meaning all shows hoping to be considered for the awards must open by that date. Nominations will be announced April 29.
Last year's telecast saw viewership jump to 7.24 million people, the show's largest audience in four years. Harris hosted for the fourth time but he'll be on Broadway this spring in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."
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