With the chatter of critics, the clatter of advertising, and the pitches at the Times Square discount booth, finding the right Broadway show to see may be even harder than finding parking near the theater.

Perhaps, however, both problems can be solved in the same place.

Throughout the year, parking attendants who toil in cavernous theater garages converse with thousands of Broadway-dazzled visitors. As they tend to cars, the attendants gather morsels of opinion, learning which new shows motorists view as hits and which they consider to be flops.

“Theater people can be very talkative,” an attendant and security guard at Astor Parking, Philip Blue, said as he waved in a woman driving a neon-blue Beetle at the MTV building. “They want to talk about their night, and part of my job is to listen.”

Parking attendants and their counterparts in garages often have little time to chat with customers, who may be on a hurried schedule set by dinner reservations and show times. Nevertheless, theatergoers enthralled by a production will often share their experiences with the valets, whether it is requested or not, according to an informal survey at more than 20 parking garages.

Mr. Blue, who has been working at Astor Parking for 10 months, said people are “raving about ‘Avenue Q,’ ‘The Boy from Oz,’ and ‘Brooklyn.’ “Customers often offer him details about their experiences, though not without facing some resistance.

“I try not to get into too much conversation.” Mr. Blue said with a boyish smile as he propped up his glasses. “I just keep smiling and say things like, ‘Oh, really,’ ‘You don’t say,’ and ‘That’s unbelievable’ as I try to get them home.”

Most parking attendants, when asked, readily offered opinions about the shows playing near their garages, and those opinions were almost al ways positive.

“Reckless,” a bittersweet comedy at the Biltmore Theater about a suburban mom whose husband takes out a contract on her life, received favorable reviews from Variety and from neighborhood parking attendants.

“They tell me it is full of drama, with lots of life issues,” Chris Matos, 19, said before heading out to West 47th Street to direct a queue of cars vying for the last of his empty spaces.

At the parking lot next-door to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where “Movin’ Out” is playing, customers expressed to a parking attendant, Alex Cumbar, a preference for two other shows around the corner.

“People going to shows around here have a lot to say about ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ less about ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ and even less about ‘Movin’ Out,’ ” Mr. Cumbar said as he sandwiched a mammoth SUV between two compacts.

As for the mainstay shows, the consensus is clear: “The Lion King” reigns supreme.

“People love to go to ‘The Lion King,’ especially with kids,” Timothy McCray, a parking attendant for 37 years, said at the garage next to the Millennium Broadway Hotel on West 44th Street. “I would say 9 out of 10 times, kids jump out at you and say they’re going to see the Disney show.”

When it comes to shows that are not doing well, such as “Dracula the Musical,” employees of parking garages said their usually talkative customers turn deadly silent – which at times is a relief.

“A lady once talked my head off for 40 minutes about a show and I had no idea how to get out of the conversation,” Mr. Blue said as he rushed to help direct another motorist. “It was a nightmare of an evening, and then she drove off.”