Broadway is sizzling right now. (So's Pittsburgh, but I dealt with that Thursday.) All the theaters are occupied and the Midtown streets are jammed. New York City finally widened the Times Square sidewalks by painting out areas of the former street, so you can actually race from show to hotel to Sardi's to interview to show without having to clear a path through the crowds of gawking tourists.

Get that -- "tourists"! We theater-goers are tourists, too, of course, but at least we have a destination. And there are degrees of savvy among theater-goers: It's easy to feel superior to the folks who stand around the TKTS booth saying, "Is this 'Rent' any good?" or "What's this 'Glass Menagerie,' a musical or play?" (Come to think, maybe that isn't so dumb after all.)

All the theaters' being full has its downside, though. "Doubt," the nice crisp play by John Patrick Shanley that won the Pulitzer, got into the Walter Kerr Theatre only because its lead producer, Carole Shorenstein Hays, was also chief investor in August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean," which she closed prematurely, presumably to make room for "Doubt." The latter is a good play (I'll have a review soon), but it's not as rich as "Gem," which ought to still be playing and slugging it out with "Doubt" and "Pillowman" for the best play Tony.

'Burghers on Broadway

Busy theaters mean more work for Pittsburghers. Without much trying, I spotted several. Fresh off the airport bus, hustling to the Shubert to arrange a post-show chat for the Post-Gazette Show Plane with the "Spamalot" cast, I literally bumped into Butler's Michelle Pawk, on her way to the Roundabout Theatre to rehearse John Robin Baitz' "Paris Letter"; hubby John Dossett is rehearsing another Roundabout show, "The Constant Wife," with Lynn Redgrave and Kate Burton.

In "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," two of the six glamorous women dancer/actors are Pittsburghers. Point Park's Roxane Barlow is in her 12th Broadway show, which makes her senior "gypsy" -- the recipient, therefore, of the "gypsy coat" that travels from show to show (she has since passed it on to fellow gypsies in "Spamalot.") In her eighth show is Green Tree's Rachelle Rak, who visited with me and friend Jane Blotzer (former PG editorial writer).

Just about every day, you see Pittsburgher Jeff Goldblum out in Shubert Alley near the stage door to "Pillowman" -- he's very generous signing autographs, and with his height and movie fame he attracts a lot of attention. Peter Matthew Smith (Quaker Valley, Point Park) is playing Motel opposite Harvey Fierstein in "Fiddler," and I ran into Daniella Topol (CMU, City Theatre) and husband.

I spent a little while with Pam Klinger, still playing Babette, the flirtatious feather duster in "Beauty and the Beast." She joined the show in 1996 and opened its new home, the Lunt-Fontanne, in 1999: Obviously a long run agrees with her. "I have the perfect job," she says. She likes that Babette is "sexy, earthy," which she says isn't her but is fun to play. She's busy with her husband of nine years and her New Jersey town; maybe some day she'll use her Duquesne degree in music education to teach, but not yet. She sends best wishes to Rob Marshall, with whom she did lots of shows, including a cabaret act for Don Brockett years ago.

Christian Borle

"Comic utility-player deluxe" I called him in last Sunday's review of "Spamalot." Christian Borle of Fox Chapel and CMU ('95) was hired to play Not Dead Fred and Prince Herbert, both featured roles with songs, and then learned he'd also play the Historian, the Minstrel (another song) and one of the French guards. He really shines among the stars (Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria) -- he might even get a Tony nomination, though I don't want to hex it by saying so.

We had a good talk in his dressing room. Eric Idle wrote the show, but Borle also got to meet the other Pythons opening night. He talked with them all, "except John Cleese, who's too intimidating to approach -- and so tall."

From director Mike Nichols, he learned to play more himself and less caricature, and obviously they liked the result, since he kept getting to play "lovely little gems that never got cut." The producers "spared no expense, which showed great confidence," and he learned that it's hard to say no to Nichols.

Borle did lose his bit as an idiot villager in the Witch Burning, which was cut, not because of expense, as the marquee claims, but because it took too long, and how funny is it to burn a witch, anyway?

Borle's parents, Andre and Lee, now live in Florida, but he still has a large rooting section at St. Edmund's School, Shady Side Academy and CMU. He couldn't be a bigger fan of Pittsburgh ("a great place to grow up, a cultural center with metropolitan feel"), even though "I couldn't get arrested there" -- he never got cast at CLO and ended up with small roles at CMU. Small roles, of course, can also loom large.