Broadway Show

THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW ON BROADWAY. 10 p.m. Saturday, HBO. NOT MANY Broadway shows begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, but then so few star Pee-wee Herman. Paul Reubens, the artist known as Pee-wee, returns Saturday night to HBO, the place where his bow-tied character's TV career launched in another special three decades ago, with "The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway. " Filmed this winter during the show's limited run at Manhattan's Stephen Sondheim Theater, it's a happy mix of childlike wonder and mildly adult humor - too mild for "Two and a Half Men," but maybe too adult for Saturday mornings - that allows Reubens to be timeless and yet topical.

Colman Domingo was around 35 when his second growth spurt began. He'd already weathered the awkward years of buck teeth and ballet lessons. Now the actor had to figure out a way to say goodbye to his parents and his childhood home at 52d and Chancellor Streets in West Philly. But rather than letting go, Domingo decided to archive his memories. The result is A Boy and His Soul, a one-man show - equal parts song, dance and storytelling - that captures the energy of the neighborhood, and the pervasiveness of R&B and soul in the 1970s and '80s.

Tomorrow morning, traffic will come to a standstill in one of the busiest sections of New York, but this time it won't be gawking tourists or angry cabbies blocking the streets. NASCAR is back to take Manhattan in a big way, with this season's top 10 drivers parading their race cars over a 1 1/2-mile course, starting at 8:30 a.m. in front of the Good Morning America studios at 44th Street and Broadway. Rolling along in single file, the 3,400-pound stock cars, powered by 850-horsepower engines, figure to rattle windows and scatter pigeons en route to the finish line, in the shadow of the Hard Rock Cafe at 43d Street and Seventh Avenue.

Live Nation, the national media company that promised to reincarnate the sumptuous but shuttered Boyd movie palace as a first-class venue for big, traveling Broadway shows, has withdrawn its construction crews and is reconsidering the project, a company spokesman confirmed yesterday. Live Nation apparently decided to shut down the project because construction costs on the Chestnut Street theater have risen at an alarming pace, said Duane Bumb, deputy director of the city's Commerce Department.

Margery Klain has produced theater in New York, but when it came to realizing a long-held desire to present staged concert revivals of Broadway musicals, she looked no farther than Center City, where she has made her home for the last 25 years. "It just seems like Philadelphia is the place to do it," Klain said of Broadway Opus, the nonprofit theater company she is launching with a production in June of The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd at the Merriam Theater.

Good Vibrations makes a compelling case for the argument that the next person who thinks it would be nice to cobble together a musical from the Beach Boys' beloved songbook should be run over by a little deuce coupe. Beyond the help of Rhonda (or anyone else), this latest stab at a jukebox musical clearly takes that cash cow Mamma Mia! as its template. But there is a crucial difference. Mamma Mia! is a fatuous and inane show that uses the songs of Abba, which are themselves mostly fatuous and inane.

Put Romeo and Juliet in New York's Hell's Kitchen. Make his family native-born American and hers immigrant Puerto Rican. Set it to music by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins, maestros at the top of their game. The volatile result is West Side Story (1961), Robert Wise's and Robbins' explosive translation of the Broadway musical to the screen. Its creators put ear to manhole in order to listen to urban rhythms - and then cranked the volume up to 10. More attention was lavished on the music and dancing than on the acting by the nominal leads, Richard Beymer as Tony and Natalie Wood as Maria, and it shows.

Baseball and Broadway share the same language. A critically acclaimed show is a hit. Backers hope for a long run. A great musical has a memorable score. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that three, count 'em, three baseball plays were lauded by critics and embraced by audiences in a Broadway season littered with pop-ups and costly strikeouts. "Take Me Out," a fascinating, eloquent tribute to the game by playwright Richard Greenberg, won last year's Tony Award as Best Play.

The Boyd Theatre, the last of Philadelphia's grand movie and vaudeville palaces, could return to its theatrical roots under a plan that would stage Broadway-size productions within its art deco splendor. City Commerce Director James J. Cuorato confirmed yesterday that the theater at Chestnut and 19th Streets - built in 1928, known since 1971 as the Sameric, and threatened last summer with demolition - would be restored by the Goldenberg Group, which owns the building, and Clear Channel Entertainment at an estimated cost of $25 million.

The cold weather has put Broadway ticket sales on ice, forcing three shows to close because of poor turnout. Imaginary Friends, Nora Ephron's play with music about the feud between writers Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy, will close Feb. 16 after 76 performances, producers said Wednesday. Oklahoma!, the $10 million Cameron Mackintosh revival that recently added Patty Duke to the cast, said it will shut down in the spring after a yearlong run, but gave no definite closing date.