You know this from the iconic sight of "Bonfire of the Vanities" novelist Tom Wolfe, looking all serene and summery and which-way-to-the-Hamptons in his signature bow-tie and white suit, waiting in the wrong line in front of the theatre for tix, chatting up an intellectual storm.

At least Victor Garber, opting for lightweight taupe attire for the night, found the press-coddling line, but then he is showbiz savvy—even longing a bit to be back on the boards here. "Well, right now," he sighed poignantly, "I'm unavailable" (translation: his television series, "Alias," is still going great guns). Then his face brightened with a happy postscript: "I'm doing A Little Night Music in L.A., with Judith Ivey and Zoe Caldwell. July 7 we open for three weeks at the Dorothy Chandler." The thought becalmed him.

Lending celebrity to the first opening of the 2004-05 Broadway season were Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Anna Deavere-Smith, soap's Erika Slezak, Victoria Tennant, Jeannie Lobell, Jack McGee, Carolyn McCormack and Iron's Lisa Emery.

The resurrected Picture, which marked his only other Broadway outing, ran a scant 12 performances with Faith Prince. Entering the Biltmore, Margulies pointed to the spot—the Brooks Atkinson, across the street from the Biltmore.

"It has only taken us 12 years to get to Broadway," the author declared later when MTC chiefs Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove passed him the mike at the after-party at Crobar on West 28th Street. His usual dire mood during a production, he said, had "been strangely upbeat" this time around—a change he attributed to Daniel Sullivan, "the director with the velvet glove whose signature is that he has no signature. He is someone who instills enormous confidence in actors to be fearless. He reveres writers and honors the words.

"This has been a wonderful homecoming to Manhattan Theatre Club for me. Sight Unseen was my breakthrough 12 years ago, which coincided with the breakthrough of Miss Laura Linney. The fact we are now here together is very, very important to me."

In the original production, Linney played the abrasive German interviewer who baits a famous Jewish painter with an inflammatory line of inquiry. Now she has stepped up to the leading lady, playing her in two different time zones—the artist's college girlfriend and an archeologist's underloved wife.

"I've always said the test of a good play is that you can revisit it later on and play a different role," Linney proffered, "but this is the first time I've actually done it. I must say it has been wonderful to come back to this play and find new depths and emotions in it."

She was particularly proud she negotiated those sharp, difficult turns in time—a zigzag of 20 years or so—without a wig, just with period costuming (by Jess Goldstein) and acting skill. "I remember, when I played the reporter, people kept asking if that was my real hair."

Linney looked very much what she was—the golden girl of the evening—and, accordingly, was protected like precious cargo while she ate and socialized by a barrier of hulking human bruisers. Actors like Campbell Scott (camouflaged behind a gray beard) and Tony-contending Ben Chaplin filed by to pay their respects, along with a still-persisting Taboo twosome (Jeffrey Carlson and the also-Tony-nominated Euan Morton) as well as a couple of "ER" regulars on the case (Anthony Edwards and Maura Tierney).

Flanking Linney were some old theatre pals-turned-TVstars: Garber on the left and John Benjamin Hickey on the right. The latter is a Juilliard classmate and Crucible co-star.

"I am home now," said Hickey, a tad wistfully. "My poor little TV show ["It's All Relative"] got canceled. Now, I'm looking for something to direct. I'm taking a play I did at Playwrights Horizons last year to Dallas Theatre Center—Bad Dates with Julie White. She did it at the Huntington in Boston and just got the Elliot Norton Award for it."