Pairing a Massage With a Broadway Evening

A Broadway evening asks you to sit still in a narrow seat for two or three hours, usually after a day of doing something else entirely. Putting a massage into that day sounds like an indulgence on top of an indulgence. Done in the right order it is simply good planning, and done in the wrong order it is not possible at all.

Is it better to have the massage before or after the show?

That depends on which performance you have tickets for, because the spa's hours make the decision for you. The Massage & Spa Club is open daily from 10am to 9pm, and the last appointment finishes by 9pm. An evening performance is still running at that point, so on an evening show day the massage always comes first. On a matinee day you get a genuine choice.

If you are free to choose your tickets, the matinee-then-massage order is the underrated one. You spend the afternoon being entertained and then spend the early evening being looked after, with nothing to rush towards. It also means the long sit in the theatre comes before the massage rather than after it, which many people find the more comfortable way round.

How long before curtain should the massage end?

At least an hour, and more if you are eating. People tend to underestimate the time a massage takes once you count the parts on either side of the table. The treatment itself is sixty or ninety minutes, but you also need to arrive about ten minutes early, dress unhurriedly afterwards, drink some water and get to the theatre. The simplest way to plan it is to work backwards from the time printed on the ticket.

1. Start from the curtain timeTheatres generally ask you to be seated a little before the performance begins, so treat the real deadline as a few minutes earlier than the ticket says.
2. Take off the walkThe club is on West 38th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue, and most Broadway houses are roughly ten to fifteen minutes away on foot. Walk slowly. You will want to.
3. Take off food, if you are eatingA light early dinner between the spa and the theatre is the classic version of this evening. Give it a proper forty-five minutes or so rather than eating in a hurry.
4. Take off a quiet quarter of an hourSitting up, dressing, a glass of water. This is the part that gets squeezed when the plan is tight, and it is the part that decides whether you arrive calm.
5. Book the treatment to end thereWhatever time is left is when the massage should finish. Count back sixty or ninety minutes for the start time, then ten more for arrival.

Which treatment suits an evening in a theatre seat?

Think about the state you want to be in when the lights go down. A show asks for attention. You want to arrive loose and comfortable, but awake enough to follow a plot and laugh in the right places.

Swedish massage is the easy default. It is gentle, flowing and covers the whole body, so you walk out warm and settled. If it is late in the afternoon and you already feel tired, the shorter session is the safer choice, because a long, slow massage followed by a dark auditorium is a very reliable way to fall asleep during the second act.

Thai Combination massage suits the evening better than people expect. It works with assisted stretching and movement, and it tends to leave you feeling opened out and alert rather than drowsy. If you have spent the day walking and are about to spend the evening folded into a seat, the stretching can feel like exactly the right preparation.

On length, the trade-off is the one described in choosing between sixty and ninety minutes, with one extra consideration. On a show day, the sixty-minute session is easier to fit and less likely to leave you racing the clock, which matters more than the extra half hour.

What changes when the show is a date?

Very little in the timing and quite a lot in the mood. A couple massage before a show means you arrive at the theatre together, having shared the quietest hour of the day, and the walk up from 38th Street becomes part of the evening rather than a commute. Planning a date around a couple massage covers the evening in more depth, including why the massage works better as the opening than the finale. A show is one of the few fixed start times that suits a date, provided you give it the hour of margin.

Settle who wants what before you arrive. One of you can have gentle work while the other asks for more pressure on the shoulders, and both run side by side in the same room without any difficulty.

What should you eat and wear?

Eat something light before the massage if the gap since lunch is long, and save dinner for between the spa and the theatre. Arriving hungry makes it hard to settle, and a large meal just before lying face down is uncomfortable. The notes on either side of a session go into this in more detail.

Wear what you plan to wear to the theatre, or bring it with you, and choose something soft that does not need careful adjusting in a mirror. If you prefer not to have any oil left on your skin under evening clothes, say so at the start and your practitioner can keep it light or leave it out.

What if the day runs late?

Then protect the show and shorten the massage. If you realise in the afternoon that the ninety minutes you booked will squeeze the hour before curtain, call the spa on (347) 514-9568 and ask whether the appointment can move earlier or become a sixty-minute session. It is a far better evening than sitting through the first act still slightly out of breath from the walk.

When you have your tickets and a curtain time, book the treatment to finish with an hour to spare, and let the evening start from there.

The show starts when the lights go down. The evening can start a couple of hours earlier.