The short version
You're about 20 minutes from the theaters. Fulton Street station is roughly a 3-minute walk from us, and the 2 or 3 express runs from Fulton up to Times Square-42nd Street in about 15 to 18 minutes with no transfer. Most people staying downtown assume a show means a taxi and a stressful evening. It doesn't. It means leaving your suite around 6:45 for an 8 o'clock curtain and still having time to stand outside and look at the marquee.
We get asked this a lot at the desk, usually by people deciding whether staying down here costs them a night uptown. It doesn't, and the trip back afterwards is honestly nicer than the trip up.
Getting there: one train, no transfer
Take the 2 or the 3 from Fulton Street to Times Square-42nd Street. Fulton Street serves several lines and is about three minutes from our door, so you're on a platform faster than you'd get into a car on John Street. The 42nd Street stop is served by the 1, 2, 3, 7, N and Q at all times, and by the W on weekdays, which matters mostly on the way home when you're less fussy about which train you get on.
Come up the stairs and you're on Seventh Avenue in the middle of the theater district. Nearly every Broadway house is within a ten-minute walk of that station, and the ones on Eighth Avenue are a couple of blocks west.
One piece of advice we give everyone: don't cut it fine. Not because the train is unreliable, but because the sidewalks around 45th Street at 7:45pm are slow going. Leave an hour before curtain and the evening stops being a logistics exercise.
Matinee or evening, if you get to choose
We'd take the matinee. Two reasons. A matinee gives you the whole evening back in the neighborhood instead of ending your night at 11pm in midtown, and the trains downtown at 5pm are running constantly. Evening shows are the better call if you want the marquees lit and the whole theater-district thing at full volume, which is a real reason and not a silly one.
Either way, check the curtain time printed on your ticket rather than assuming. Matinees and evening performances vary by show and by day of the week.
Tickets: book ahead or take your chances at TKTS
If there's one specific show you came for, buy it in advance. If you're flexible, the TKTS booth run by TDF sells same-day performances and next-day matinees at up to 50% off, and the Times Square booth is under the red steps in Father Duffy Square at Broadway and 47th Street. TDF also lists discounts of roughly 20% to 50% across Broadway and off-Broadway.
Our honest take: TKTS is worth it if you genuinely don't mind what you see. If you have your heart set on one title, the line will teach you an expensive lesson about supply and demand.
Eating around it
The simplest version is to eat downtown early and go up with time to spare. Stone Street is a cobblestone block of restaurants under ten minutes' walk south of us, and it's the block we point people to most often for a proper sit-down before they head uptown.
The other version, and the one we'd pick after a late curtain, is to not book anything at all. Your suite has a full kitchen, so a late plate of something at your own table beats hunting for a table at 11:15pm anywhere in this city. If you know you'll want that, shop before you go out.
Getting back after curtain
The subway runs 24 hours, so the 2 or 3 back to Fulton Street is there whenever the show lets out. The ride down is quieter than the ride up, and the last three minutes are a walk through streets that empty out at night. That is the part guests tell us they didn't expect to like.
If you'd rather ride than walk to the platform, a car from the theater district downtown is straightforward at that hour too. It just costs a lot more than the train and, after a show lets out, often isn't faster.
Why we think downtown is a decent base for a theater trip
A show is a three-hour block of one evening. The rest of your trip happens where you sleep, and down here that means quiet streets on the weekend, the harbor at the end of Broadway, and room to spread out when you get back. You're trading a five-minute walk to the theater for a 20-minute train ride, and getting a neighborhood in exchange. We'd make that trade.