Four ways to spend a New York City day with your parents

The cast and creative team of the Off-Broadway play Conversations With Mother share their favorite places to bring their moms and dads when they visit.

"There's something really great about coming to the city with a loved one or a parent and having a day planned where you really get to connect through activity and through sightseeing," said Noah Himmelstein, director of the new Off-Broadway play Conversations With Mother. The whole show is about connecting with your loved ones, with playwright Matthew Lombardo condensing a lifetime of highs and lows into various interactions between one mother (played by Caroline Aaron) and her gay son (Matt Doyle), whose relationship is ever-evolving.

All recommended Conversations With Mother as a great show to see with the family, so we also asked them what else they like to do with their parents (or vice versa in the case of Aaron, a parent herself) when they visit. Check out their recommendations below to help you plan your next family day in New York City!

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Matt Doyle (Bobby): Museums and martinis

My mom loves museums. We'd have to go to either the Guggenheim or MoMA, and then from there, we would probably make sure that we went to a great restaurant. We'd probably go to an Italian restaurant, maybe downtown in the West Village. And then cap it off, my mom enjoys going out for drinks. There's a great jazz bar that I know downtown called Zinc, and we'd do espresso martinis and watch jazz together.

Caroline Aaron (Maria Collavechio): Letting Mom decide

On Mother's Day, always, I would say to my children, "I get to do anything I want today." In the city, I would always want to be at the theatre with them. It's never going to be their first choice, necessarily. [The musical] Suffs just closed, and I'd already seen it, but I felt like, before it closed, I wanted to take my daughter and my daughter-in-law. [...] It was the three of us, and I had a great time.

Matthew Lombardo (playwright): Two-show day

My mother, she's 96 and living in Connecticut. She would come to the city. She'd stay overnight. We'd go to breakfast. She would love to walk around the city, and we'd walk down Eighth Avenue, arm in arm, and then we'd go see a show. We'd have a nice dinner. We'd go see another show if it was a Wednesday or Saturday matinee.

Noah Himmelstein (director): Park and a play

We love to go to Central Park. Sometimes we'll go to a museum. We'll go to a matinee together. Coming to see our show is the best possible thing you can do with your mother. Laugh for 90 minutes, and then you might cry a little bit, and go have a drink and pull it apart together and see where you fit inside the show and how relatable it is. It's just a huge hug.

Get Conversations With Mother tickets now.

Photo credit: Caroline Aaron and Matt Doyle for Conversations With Mother. (Photo courtesy of production)