January Culture Guide: 45 Things to Do in the DC Area

Welcome to 2025, DC!

There are exciting things happening in the DC area this January. You can meet the National Zoo’s new pandas, see Sarah Silverman’s musical comedy, and celebrate Dry January at the Mindful Drinking Fest.

10 Best Things to Do in DC

by Pat Padua

Theater

Downstate

Opening January 8

Playwright Bruce Norris’s provocative drama is set in a group home for registered sex offenders. The tension heightens when a visitor arrives to accuse his former abuser.

Music

L’Impératrice

January 16

The French nu-disco group had a busy 2024–both a new album, Pulsar, and a new singer, Louve. With their wispy female vocals and space-age synths, their live spectacle is highly recommended to fans of Twin Peaks and Daft Punk.

Music

Carlos Miguel Prieto and Jorge Federico Osorio With the National Symphony Orchestra

January 16–18

Two powerhouses of Mexican classical music come to DC: Prieto will conduct Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and a piece by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, while Osorio (above) interprets Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Animals

Pandas at the Zoo

January 24

Woodley Park’s most famous transplants from abroad, Bao Li and Qing Bao, have been adjusting to their new home at the National Zoo since October. Now the public will finally get to meet the adorable creatures.

Theater

Job

January 28–March 16

Max Wolf Friedlich’s play immerses us in the tension between a woman whose workplace breakdown goes viral and the therapist she threatens with a gun.

Music

Gianandrea Noseda Conducts Vanessa

January 30 and February 1

For the Opera in Concert series, Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra turn to Samuel Barber’s 1958 opera, Vanessa, a brooding Gothic romance whose eponymous protagonist falls for the son of an old lover.

Music

Marjan Farsad

January 30

The Iranian-born performer is more than just a pop singer. Her music videos feature her own animations, which vividly depict her homeland in settings that evoke both fairy tales and the troubles of the modern world.

Theater

Song of the North

January 31

Multimedia artist Hamid Rahmanian created this vibrant stage adaptation of an 11th-century Persian epic poem. The ancient tale of a knight who falls in love with a princess from a rival family comes to life with a cast that includes nine performers and hundreds of puppets.

Sarah Silverman cowrote this adaptation of her bestselling memoir about clinical depression with the late musician Adam Schlesinger, who helped translate a young girl’s cringe into musical comedy.

Books

The Many Lives of Anne Frank by Ruth Franklin

January 29

The prominent critic’s new book looks beyond the life of the doomed teenager and examines her broader legacy, resulting in a thoroughly researched and fairly experimental biography.

Want More Things to Do?

by Briana Thomas

Arts and culture:

• Attend a Community Day at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (January 5, 8, free, Downtown).
• Watch giant trucks trample over obstacles at Monster Jam (January 24-26, $20+, Capital One Arena).
• View intricate Lego sculptures at The Art of the Brick Washington DC (opens January 30, $25, Brentwood).
• Browse new cars at The Washington, DC Auto Show (January 31-February 9, $15+, Walter E. Washington Convention Center).

Community and heritage:

• Attend a wellness fair, and enjoy parade performances at the 20th Annual MLK Holiday DC Peace Walk & Parade (January 18, free, Congress Heights).
• Learn about the US Mint’s new American quarter for civil rights activist Ida B. Wells at the museum (January 23, free, but registration required, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture).
• Celebrate Lunar New Year with lion dance performances and a jazz concert headlining Chinese American composer Stephanie Chou (January 25, free, Kennedy Center).

Theater:

• Watch two days’ worth of new plays by BIPOC playwrights at A First Look: The Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commissions (January 10-11, free, Penn Quarter).
• Broadway’s musical narration of rock-and-roll queen Tina Turner’s career arrives at the National Theatre (January 24-26, $69+, Downtown).
• See the one-man show Guac at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, about a father turned activist (January 25-February 16, $30, Penn Quarter).
• Sit in on Shakespeare-themed staged readings, panel discussions, and workshops at The Reading Room Festival (January 30-February 2, $150 for pass, Capitol Hill).
• Broadway Center Stage: Schmigadoon! musical follows the story of two doctors on a road trip to save their failing relationship (January 31-February 9, $59+, Kennedy Center).
• The Come From Away musical tells the true story of airplane passengers stranded on Newfoundland after 9/11 (January 31-February 2, $63+, Tysons).

Shows and performances:

• Sing along with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington at open mic night (January 8, free, H Street Corridor).
• Comedian Craig Robinson does standup at the DC Improv (January 9-12, $55+, Downtown).
• Start 2025 with a ton of laughs at Dropout Improv; tickets are selling fast (January 21, $305+, Warner Theatre).
• Actor and comic star Nick Swardson arrives in DC for a one-night show (January 24, $53+, Warner Theatre).
• National Ballet of China presents at two-act dance performance to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker score (January 29-February 2, $30+, Kennedy Center).

Music:

• Tap your feet to bluegrass bands at a three-day festival; there’s cheap beer, too (January 2-4, free, Wharf).
• Attend a rock concert to help support Girls Rock! DC (January 3, $19, Union Market).
• Admirers of Sabrina Carpenter can dance to her music with fellow fans at 9:30 Club (January 4, $30, Shaw).
• Emo-indie band Hit Like a Girl plays live at DC9 Nightclub (January 8, $15, U Street Corridor).
• Move your feet to Chappell Roan, Fletcher, Phoebe Bridgers, Boygenius, and Kim Petras tunes at Sapphic Factory: Queer Joy Party (January 11, $20, Shaw).
• Indie bands battle it out on a basketball court in the Mosh Madness benefit concert to help raise funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (January 11, $15, Takoma Park).
• Indie rock band Mo Lowda & The Humble perform at 9:30 Club (January 17, $25, Shaw).
• See a high-energy Yamato concert featuring Japanese Taiko drums (January 23, $28+, Bethesda).
• Soul vocalist Chanté Moore sings at The Birchmere (January 23-24, $85, Alexandria).
• Get tickets to Union Stage’s Club XCX before they sell out (January 24, $15+, Wharf).
• Hip-hop legend Warren G commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Regulate album at Howard Theatre (January 24, $35+, Shaw).
• After an eight-year hiatus, Blind Pilot is back on stage performing songs from their new album (January 26, $30, Shaw).
• British musical trio Jamie xx plays live at the Anthem (January 30, $50+, Wharf).

Bites and beverages:

• Mindful Drinking Fest is offers non-alcoholic beverages, yoga, and dance parties to kick off your 2025 wellness journey (January 10-12, $75+, Union Market).
• Eat discounted bites throughout the DC area during Winter Restaurant Week (January 27-February 2, prices vary, multiple DC locations).

Things to do with kids:

• Watch a movie screening of the playful kids flick Kung Fu Panda at the Smithsonian (January 11, free, but registration required, Smithsonian American Art Museum).
• Kiddos can explore fossils, dinosaur replicas, and more fun at Jurassic Quest (January 24-26, $22+, Chantilly).

A version of this article appears in the January 2025 issue of Washingtonian.