“We were clinging to each other all throughout the show,” interjected her friend, Libby King, an actress.

Any directorial advice Ms. Chavkin would have given Mr. Springsteen? “Oh, God no,” she said, laughing. “I didn’t have a single thought of craft in my brain beyond thinking this guy has all the craft in the world, who has the ability, and has earned the ability, to stand stock-still and tell these incredibly moving stories.”

“I’m not a religious person,” Ms. Chavkin added, “but this was a religious experience.”

In another room at the party, the producer Jordan Roth was accepting congratulations for bringing “Springsteen on Broadway” to life. The show did extraordinarily well at the box office in its first week of previews, with an average ticket price of $497, and the entire four-month run is sold out except for a few tickets held back each day for an online lottery. It is also one of two blockbuster shows that Mr. Roth will be producing this Broadway season. The other is a much-anticipated revival of “Angels in America,” starring Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield, that starts at the Neil Simon Theater in late February.

“Just a fantastic night, wasn’t it?” Mr. Roth said, clad from head to toe in Alexander McQueen red leather.

Earlier that evening, more than a few people in the audience seemed to want to sing or clap along with Mr. Springsteen as he unfolded some of his more familiar hits, an impulse quickly shot down by the singer halfway through a soulful rendition of “Dancing in the Dark” with a darkly smiling ‘Thanks, I can handle this myself.”