Not the only game in town

Tomorrow, the Pats once again prepare to meet the Giants, with kickoff scheduled for 6:20 p.m. It will be nonstop Super Bowl hysteria for many - for others, a walk in the park. Or a movie night. Or an evening on the town.

“A good amount of us couldn’t even tell you the date’’ of the Super Bowl, said Jason Bond, chef-owner of Bondir, the very hip but tiny (28 seats) Cambridge restaurant where it will be business as usual at game time. His advice about booking a reservation for tomorrow night? Early and late seatings are easier to get than a prime-time table.

Does Bondir have a flat screen TV, at least, in case diners want to follow the game? That would be a no.

Laurie Nash of Newton doesn’t care much about football or the Pats, either. But she is a theater buff. Tomorrow she’ll be attending the New Repertory Theatre’s production of “ART,’’ which ends its three-week run with a 2 p.m. matinee show.

A New Rep season subscriber, Nash specifically picked Super Bowl Sunday to see the play, assuming she’d secure a better seat that day because people were making plans to be elsewhere. Which she has.

“It wasn’t a difficult decision for me,’’ says Nash, who may end up at a Super Bowl party with friends later, but more to socialize and watch the ads, she says, than to root for the home team.

Also at “ART’’ tomorrow will be Ken Kimmel of Newton, who does care about the Pats and will catch the game action later that evening. But like many locals making other plans for tomorrow, his day will not be built around hours of pregame hype.

“I can’t do nine hours of pregame analysis,’’ he says. “There’s time to do something in the real world, too. To get some culture and take advantage of what this city has to offer.’’

In some cases, events around the city are being marketed as alternatives to game-watching. Club Passim in Cambridge, for instance, is staging an 8 p.m. show with Grammy nominee Nicolay and the jazz trio the Hot at Nights. Matt Smith, the club’s managing director, says he’s unwilling to forego programming concerts on a Super Bowl night, no matter who’s playing in the game.

“We have 102 seats in the club, and there have got to be 102 people who want to see some cool music’’ instead of football, Smith says.

At Lilypad, another Cambridge live music venue, owner Gill Aharon has booked shows during game time, one featuring singer-songwriter Gabriela Martina and the other with Brother Sun Sister Moon, a group of New England Conservatory musicians.

Aharon doubts there’s much overlap between his club’s regular audience and hardcore football fans. Moreover, he rarely pays attention to sports schedules - or holidays, for that matter - when scheduling shows. “That may change,’’ he concedes, adding, “If the Patriots win, or something terrible happens during the game, there’s a bar next door. We’ll probably hear about it.’’

James Liu of Cambridge belongs to the minority, tiny or not, who barely have this year’s Super Bowl on their radar screens. Tomorrow morning, Liu, a physician and part-time singer, will join his choirmates at the First Church in Boston. That afternoon, at 4 p.m., he’ll be at an Emmanuel Music concert at Parish Hall, featuring pianist Russell Sherman and tenor Frank Kelley performing Schubert’s “Die Schöne Müllerin,’’ Op. 25.

The concert is scheduled to last an hour, after which Liu plans to go grocery shopping. On previous Super Bowl Sundays, before he and his wife had twin daughters, now 2 years old, the couple “made a point of going to see a movie or out to a restaurant that was difficult to get into normally,’’ says Liu.

Told that Sherman himself is a rabid sports fan who passionately follows the Patriots and other local teams, Liu expressed some surprise. Yet Sherman, who’s been watching ESPN updates in between practice sessions, makes no secret of his rabid fandom and says it’s “therapeutic’’ he’ll be performing tomorrow afternoon, since otherwise he’d be chewing his fingernails all day long.

“As Frank and I have already discussed,’’ Sherman says, “the audience will give us a brief wave after the concert and dash for the exits - as we’ll be doing.’’

For many, of course, commitments were made and tickets bought long before the Patriots qualified for this year’s title game. Lonnie McAdoo of Cambridge and his fiancée secured tickets to tomorrow night’s 7 p.m. performance of Tennessee Williams’s “Green Eyes.’’ The one-act play, staged by Company One, runs about 90 minutes, wiping out any chance for the couple to see much of the game.

A casual football fan, McAdoo wanted to see “Green Eyes’’ before it, too, closes tomorrow. Still, he and his fiancée were mildly distraught when they realized the looming conflict.

“We aren’t hardcore football fans, but even she said, ‘Wow, we’re going to miss the game,’ ’’ says McAdoo. “We decided the theatrical experience will be at least as interesting, though. And we can always catch the highlights later.’’

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.