Museums and galleries
Washington has a plethora of museums; 10 Smithsonian museums border the Mall alone. These are the National Museum of Natural History (1910), the Freer Gallery of Art (1923), the National Gallery of Art (1941 and 1978; housed in two buildings), the National Museum of American History (1964), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974), the National Air and Space Museum (1976), the National Museum of African Art (1979; moved to the Mall location in 1987), the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (1987), the National Museum of the American Indian (2004), and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016). Just off the Mall are the Smithsonianās National Portrait Gallery, the Renwick Gallery, and the American Art Museum.
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Among Washingtonās other noted private museums and galleries are the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Dumbarton Oaks Museum, the Kreeger Museum, the National Building Museum, the Textile Museum, the Phillips Collection, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Private home museums include Decatur House, Dumbarton House, Hillwood Museum and Gardens, Octagon House, Tudor Place, and the Woodrow Wilson House.
Theater
An appreciation of drama runs deep in Washington. Washingtonās first legitimate theater opened in 1800 in Blodgettās Hotel, under the name the United States Theater. Four years later, the Washington Theater opened, followed by the National Theater in 1835, which is still in operation and boasts of having staged more performances than any other theater in the country.
Fordās Athenaeum (later named Fordās Theatre) opened in 1862 and is now both a theater and a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. In 1866, the year after Lincoln was shot while attending a performance at the theater, Congress acquired and converted the theater building for office use. Thirty years later, Congress purchased Peterson House, the boarding house across from the theater in which Lincoln died. In 1932 a federally owned museum was opened in the theater, displaying the Osborn H. Oldroyd collection of Lincoln memorabilia. In 1968 the restored theater offered its first performance since April 14, 1865, the date of Lincolnās assassination; it has continued to host musicals and plays.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1971, though the idea of a civic center in the city dated back to the 1930s. The Kennedy Center is privately administered and is under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution. It supports three large theaters, three smaller theaters, the American Film Institute, and shops and restaurants. In December 2025, Donald Trump announced he was renaming the Kennedy Center to āThe Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.ā In March 2026, the centerās board voted to close the center for renovations for two years beginning in July 2026.
In 1929 a 4,000-seat auditorium, Constitution Hall, opened in the building that houses the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Washington also has many smaller theater venues, including the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, the Lincoln Theatre, the Warner Theatre, the Studio Theatre, and the Gala Hispanic Theatre.
The Washington Military District in Southeast offers free military band concerts on summer weekday evenings. The Sylvan Stage, on the Mall, and the Carter Barron Amphitheater offer free summer evening performances. Local churches, museums, libraries, memorials, and art galleries offer free noontime and evening concerts and recitals year-round.
Wolf Trap Farm Park in suburban Virginia is a national park dedicated to the performing arts where professional theater, jazz, opera, and dance performances are offered during the summer. The Merriweather Post Pavilion, located in suburban Maryland, is an outdoor theater.