Northern Virginia Entertainment: Theatre and Cinema Overview

Cinema

The Old Town Theatre serves up arty, independent and off-beat cinema as well as blockbuster hits in Old Town. The Old Town Theatre has great ambiance and is in a niche of area theatres that sells alcoholic beverages, similar to the Arlington Draft House. The AMC Theatre at the Hoffman Center, Kingstowne 16 and Regal at Potomac Yard hosts blockbusters and mainstream movies in modern movie houses. Additionally, the Signature Theatre and AMC Loews, both in Shirlington, are feasible choices for your viewing pleasure.  

Theater

Capitol Steps

Capitol Steps began as a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that employed them.

In the years that followed, many of the Steps ignored the conventional wisdom ("Don't quit your day job!"), and although not all of the current members of the Steps are former Capitol Hill staffers, taken together the performers have worked in a total of eighteen Congressional offices and represent 62 years of collective House and Senate staff experience.

Arena Stage

The core purpose of Arena Stage is to produce huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit. Arena has broad shoulders and a capacity to produce anything from vast epics to charged dramas to robust musicals. Our focus is on theater of the Americas; we produce American classics, premieres of new plays and contemporary stories. Our Arena is a forum, a coliseum, a place for audiences to argue, discuss and meet each other over the theatrical divide. At the center is art; all other programs thrive in concentric circles supporting the art.

Wolf Trap

As America's National Park for the Performing Arts, Wolf Trap plays a valuable leadership role in both the local and national performing arts communities. Through a wide range of artistic and education programs, Wolf Trap enhances our nation's cultural life and ensures that the arts remain accessible and affordable to the broadest possible audience.

Nissan Pavilion

Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge is an outdoor live performance amphitheatre with a 25,000 fan capacity, the largest in the Washington Metropolitan area. The Pavilion is located in semi-rural Prince William County which is approximately 35 miles west of our neighborhood.

Kennedy Center

The Kennedy Center, located on 17 acres overlooking the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., is America's living memorial to President Kennedy as well as the nation's busiest arts facility, presenting more than 3,000 performances each year. Touring Kennedy Center productions and its television, radio, and Internet broadcasts reach millions around the world. As part of the Kennedy Center's Performing Arts for Everyone outreach program, hundreds of free performances are offered each year featuring national and local artists; these include early-evening concerts on the Millennium Stage, dozens of performances during the annual Open House Arts Festival, and daily concerts of seasonal music in December as part of Holidays at the Kennedy Center. Since 1999, the Millennium Stage performances have been broadcast live over the Internet and digitally archived on the Kennedy Center's website.

The Shakespeare Theatre

Since its founding in 1985, The Shakespeare Theatre has endeavored to be the nation's leading force in the presentation and preservation of classic theatre. Our core mission is to present classic theatre in an accessible, skillful, imaginative, American style that honors playwrights' language and intentions while viewing their plays through a 21st-century lens. With the formation of the Harman Center for the Arts---which includes the new Sidney Harman Hall and the existing Lansburgh Theatre---the Shakespeare Theatre Company will become a national destination theatre offering a broad range of works to audiences in the greater-Washington area and across the nation.

Fords Theatre

Fords Theatre is a live, working theatre located in downtown Washington, DC. As a national historic and cultural site welcoming visitors from across the nation, Ford's Theatre blends its rich history with performance excellence in serving as a living tribute to President Lincoln's love of the performing arts. When Ford's Theatre re-opened its doors in 1968 --after having been closed 103 years --it truly was reclaimed as a national treasure for all Americans, and those of us who work here are mindful of that legacy and grateful that Ford's Theatre once again is a vibrant showcase for the performing arts that President Lincoln so appreciated.

Little Theatre of Alexandria

Located on Wolfe Street, the Little Theatre of Alexandria has year round productions. There holiday performances are fitting of the season. Plays here are well attended with some selling out weeks in advance. This Theatre is in the City of Alexandria and close to the luxuries of Old Town.

Other Venues

The Warner Theatre , The Smithsonian, the Artisphere, and the The MCI Center are nationally renown venues for theatre, sport and entertainment.
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Aubrey Nesbitt

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Aubrey Nesbitt is a native of Northern Virginia who attended Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a veteran of the US Army and helps his family business by providing informational articles like this one. In addition to photography and blogging, Aubrey provides administrative support for the office. Aubrey is a service-disabled retired veteran and a part of our family. We give him the opportunity to work at the office and on the web as part of his recovery. The opinions and statements presented by Aubrey are his own and we don't necessarily agree with them.