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Northern Virginia and Washington are heading into a crowded spring weekend, with community concerts, major theater productions, outdoor celebrations, dance performances, museum exhibitions and festivals devoted to everything from native plants to fine chocolate.

Here are the events to know about from Thursday, April 23, through the days ahead.

Music and dance

The City of Falls Church Concert Band will join other regional ensembles at the Annual National Community Band Festival from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts, 2301 Smith Blvd. in Arlington. Five bands will perform Saturday and three Sunday. Daily tickets cost $19 for adults, $14 for people 55 and older and $9 for students, with a $4 online processing fee but none at the door. Lot K offers free parking, while the Mason Pond Parking Deck costs $10.

Mary Riley Styles Public Library will close Poetry Month with “Picking Daisies,” a folk concert by Susan and Rob of Bicyclist Blues. The program runs from 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, April 26, at 120 N. Virginia Ave. in Falls Church. The duo will perform British and Scottish ballads, Irish music and contemporary folk selections, including works associated with Robert Burns, Sandy Denny, Kate Rusby, June Tabor, Rioghnach Connolly and Anaïs Mitchell. Registration is required and remains open until the event begins.

Modern bluegrass group the AlgoRhythms will play at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at Clare and Don’s Beach Shack, 130 N. Washington St. The band features Jared Kimble on mandolin, Matt Lewis on bass, Sam Allen on banjo and Brandon Lindley, with a repertoire spanning original songs, bluegrass standards and country- and rock-influenced arrangements.

Mason Opera will stage Gian Carlo Menotti’s comedic one-act operas “The Telephone” and “The Old Maid and the Thief” at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts in Fairfax. Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday, April 24; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; and 3 p.m. Sunday. Sunday’s performance will be audio described. Tickets, including fees, cost $24 for the general public, $19 for seniors and $9 for students.

The Bernard/Ebb Songwriting Awards will celebrate their 10th anniversary with a finalists concert and awards ceremony at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 24, at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. Emerging songwriters from Maryland, Virginia and Washington will compete for a $10,000 grand prize and recording support, while one songwriter younger than 17 will receive $2,500. Advance tickets cost $20 to $35, rising to $25 to $40 during event week.

Pianist, vocalist and composer Amy K. Bormet will lead “Time Travel,” an outdoor jazz concert inspired by Hillwood’s “On Time: Giving Form to the Fleeting” exhibition. The April 29 program at Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens begins with museum and garden access at 5:30 p.m., followed by music on the Lunar Lawn from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Guests should bring chairs or blankets. Tickets cost $30 for nonmembers, $25 for members, $10 for students and $5 for children ages 6 to 18; younger children enter free. Rain would move the concert to April 30, with a livestream planned if poor weather continues.

Doug Varone and Dancers will mark the company’s 40th anniversary with a free performance at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts. The approximately 105-minute program includes “Lux,” “Home” and the premiere of “No Matter the End.” Tickets are required and limited to six per order. A discussion with Varone begins one hour before the performance.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company returns to Woolly Mammoth for an Asian American Heritage Month program running April 24 through May 3. The company will draw from its 33-year repertoire and premiere “Drawing in Space,” a tribute to artist Ruth Asawa. Opening-weekend performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

The 23rd annual D.C. Lindy Exchange begins its weekend of dancing with the Craig Gildner Big Band at Glen Echo’s Spanish Ballroom on Friday, April 24. A beginner lesson starts at 8 p.m., followed by social dancing from 9 p.m. to midnight. Admission is $40 through an individual ticket or a full-weekend pass, with limited tickets expected at the door.

Theater takes over local stages

Meridian High School’s theater department presents “Amadeus” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, April 23-25, at 121 Mustang Alley. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Creative Cauldron’s free Bold New Voices Festival continues Saturdays through May 9 at 127 E. Broad St., with readings at 2 and 7:30 p.m. The festival lets audiences help select a work for the 2026-27 season. This year’s plays and musicals include Sarah Lina Sparks’ “The C Word,” Gaelyn D. Smith’s “Live From My Dad’s Couch,” Danielle Moore and Zachary Sloan’s “His Girl Friday,” and Diana Burbano’s “Policarpa: Apocalypse Sur Amerikka.”

Nova Nightsky Theater stages “Anthropology,” a thriller about a grieving woman who creates an AI version of her dead sister only to discover the digital twin is keeping secrets. Performances at Falls Church Presbyterian Church’s Memorial Hall are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday.

Synetic Theater’s teen performers tackle “Cyrano de Bergerac” at Gunston Middle School in Arlington at 3 p.m. April 24-26. Those three performances open with the preteen program’s 15-minute production of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” The adaptation uses clowning and commedia-inspired staging to explore romance, loyalty and sacrifice.

“I & You: The Musical” runs through May 24 at Olney Theatre Center. The story follows seriously ill student Caroline and classmate Anthony as they work on an assignment about Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and uncover a deeper connection. Lauren M. Gunderson’s play supplies the book, with music and lyrics by Ari Afsar. Performances this weekend include 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

“Set It Off Live!” brings the 1996 heist film to the Warner Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday and at 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Je’Caryous Johnson adapted the story for the stage, with rapper Da Brat playing Cleopatra “Cleo” Sims.

At 1st Stage in Tysons, the final weekend of Lauren Yee’s “Young Americans” follows two cross-country journeys taken 20 years apart. Joe first travels with his immigrant partner, Jenny, and later retraces the route with their 21-year-old daughter, Lucy. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. April 23 and 24 and at 2 and 7:30 p.m. April 25, with the run ending April 26.

Vienna Theatre Company opens “My Fair Lady” at 7 p.m. April 24 and 25, followed by a 2 p.m. matinee April 26. Additional performances are set for May 1-3 at 120 Cherry St. SE. The Lerner and Loewe musical follows flower seller Eliza Doolittle as Henry Higgins attempts to transform her speech and manners.

“The Book of Mormon” arrives at the National Theatre for a run from April 28 through May 3. The nine-time Tony Award-winning musical comedy follows two mismatched missionaries sent across the world and contains explicit language.

Tracy Letts’ “The Minutes” continues its D.C. premiere at Keegan Theatre through May 3. Set during a small-town council meeting, the dark comedy turns routine civic business into an examination of institutional power and buried history.

Ford’s Theatre continues “1776” through May 16. The three-hour musical dramatizes the Second Continental Congress and the campaign by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson for independence. A sensory-friendly performance is scheduled for 1 p.m. April 25, followed by audio description May 2 and ASL interpretation May 9. The production is recommended for ages 13 and older.

Mosaic Theater Company’s “Young John Lewis: Prodigy of Protest” has limited tickets remaining for performances April 24, 25 and 29 at 7:30 p.m. The musical focuses on Lewis between ages 18 and 28, from the impact of Emmett Till’s murder through his leadership in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and work alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

At Arena Stage, Lameece Issaq performs her one-woman play “A Good Day to Me Not to You,” about a fired dental lab technician who moves into a women’s residence run by nuns while confronting grief and an unrealized desire for motherhood. Performances continue through May 3, including 8 p.m. shows April 23-25 and a 2 p.m. matinee April 26. The 85-minute production contains adult language and mature material.

Olney Theatre Center’s nearly sold-out production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate” closes April 26. The dark family satire follows siblings sorting through their late father’s Arkansas estate and confronting a disturbing inheritance. Tickets cost $52 to $116. The three-hour production contains strong language, racist imagery and sexual content.

Folger Theatre will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Federal Theatre Project’s landmark all-Black “Macbeth” with a staged reading at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 25. Adjoa Andoh adapted and directs the benefit performance, which recalls the influential 1936 production directed by Orson Welles. Tickets cost $35 to $70.

Hexagon’s political satire revue “Lollapalosers!” closes April 26 at Atlas Performing Arts Center. The company’s 70th-year production features original songs and sketches targeting both sides of American politics. Shows are at 8 p.m. April 24 and 25 and 3 p.m. April 25 and 26. The final performance includes ASL interpretation and discounted tickets for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons.

Art, exhibitions and creative programs

The Spotlight on the Arts Festival opens at 7 p.m. Friday, April 24, at Capital One Hall in Tysons. The evening includes performances by Cristian Perez and Munit Mesfin, the Sweet Adelines, Fairfax Academy students and George Mason University scholarship-winning pianists. Nearly 400 works were submitted to the accompanying art contest. Attendees can vote for a $500 Community Choice Award, while jurors will announce winners of prizes worth $1,500, $1,000 and $500. General admission is $35.

At the Kreeger Museum through July 11, D.C. artist Imar Lyman’s “Echo/Location: Exploring the Extra-Sensory” uses collage, painting, sculpture and printmaking to consider how echoes from the past can help viewers navigate the present. Some pieces invite audience participation, and the work enters into conversation with art by Sam Gilliam and Frank Stella.

“Reverie Is Not the Same as ‘Doing Nothing’” closes at Arlington’s Fred Schnider Gallery of Art with an event featuring Michele Montalbano from 5 to 7 p.m. April 25.

The National Gallery of Art is marking 100 years since Mary Cassatt’s death with an exhibition of about 40 paintings, drawings and prints. The free show remains in the West Building through Aug. 30.

The National Museum of Asian Art’s “Of the Hills” presents 48 Pahari paintings created for Hindu kings in India’s Himalayan region between the 1620s and 1830s. The exhibition, on view through July 26, includes rarely displayed works and explores the collaborative communities that produced them.

Nick Cave’s “Mammoth,” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through Jan. 3, 2027, transforms museum galleries with fabricated mammoth remains, moving images and hundreds of altered found objects. The free installation connects Cave’s family history in rural Missouri with questions about landscape, identity, loss and imagination.

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art in Reston pairs recent work by Janet Loren Hill and Andrew Casto through July 25. Hill’s shaped paintings trace histories of labor and coercion through surreal figures, while Casto translates geological processes into ceramic and mixed-media vessels.

“Miró and the United States,” at the Phillips Collection through July 5, assembles 75 works by more than 30 artists. The exhibition examines the exchanges between Joan Miró and American figures including Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler.

The National Portrait Gallery’s 2025 Teen Portrait Competition exhibition features photographs by 19 finalists through Aug. 30. Maryland’s Matilda Myers won the 13-to-15 category with “Rest,” depicting a ballerina beside a pickaxe. California’s Kate Stermer won the 16-to-17 group with “The Cost of Conformity.” More than 1,100 students from 48 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and Washington entered.

“Vishnu’s Cosmic Ocean” at the National Museum of Asian Art presents a nearly 20-foot Cambodian bronze in its full monumental scale for the first time in centuries. Conservators reconnected fragments found with the sculpture in 1936 after decades of research. The show continues through Sept. 7.

Basil Kincaid’s first solo Washington museum exhibition fills the Rubell Museum DC’s largest gallery through fall 2026. “Spirit in the Gift” features four monumental quilts created during a 2023 Miami residency and connects quilt-making traditions with identity, ancestry, community, drawing and jazz.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts displays about 80 works by nearly 70 artists in “Making Their Mark” through July 26. Organized into seven thematic sections, the exhibition links generations of artists who challenge distinctions between fine art and craft through painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, beadwork and installation.

Adults can spend 90 minutes examining Helen Frankenthaler’s “Mountains and Sea” during the National Gallery’s “Finding Awe” program on April 25. The session runs from 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and uses close observation and group discussion to explore how encounters with art can shift perspective. Registration is required.

Georgetown University professor and dean emeritus Michael Collins will discuss the choices actors and directors face when staging Shakespeare at Mary Riley Styles Public Library from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 25. Using two speeches from “King Lear,” Collins will examine the possibilities created by sparse stage directions and ambiguous language. Registration is required.

Outdoor celebrations and family events

Falls Church will mark Arbor Day with free trees and a community planting at Cherry Hill Park on Saturday, April 25. The Village Preservation and Improvement Society will distribute 250 oak saplings at the farmers market from 9 a.m. to noon. The city’s ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. behind the basketball courts, celebrating Falls Church’s 48th year as a Tree City USA community. Volunteers will plant saplings in the wooded area, with tools, gloves and refreshments provided.

West Falls has launched a warm-weather event series at Commons Park, 201 W. Falls Station Blvd. Free live music runs from 6 to 9 p.m. every Friday. A 30-minute HIIT workout and happy hour are planned for 5:30 to 7 p.m. April 29. Free Thursday trivia begins May 7 and continues through June 11, while $10 Barre3 classes start May 9 and return every second Saturday.

The National Archives’ “Road to Revolution” series continues through April 30, using government records to examine the years leading to independence and the experiences of Native Americans, free and enslaved Black Americans and women. “Behind the Ink of the Declaration of Independence,” also closing April 30, focuses on the people who physically marked the document.

The Georgetown French Market returns from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 24-26 along Wisconsin Avenue between O Street and Reservoir Road. More than 40 independent shops, cafés and galleries will offer sidewalk sales and specials, joined by music, stilt walkers, face painting, a mime and French-inspired food and drinks.

Mini alpacas will visit Peruvian Brothers, 1450 S. Eads St., from 5 to 7 p.m. April 23 and 30. The restaurant will pair the animals’ appearances with food and drink specials.

The 30th Annual Orchid Show closes April 26 at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The free exhibition features hundreds of blooms from Smithsonian Gardens and the United States Botanic Garden. Timed-entry passes are required.

Children can learn about native plants, make nature-inspired crafts and build bee hotels during a free Pollinator Party from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, April 26, at Howard E. Herman Stream Valley Park, 601 W. Broad St. No registration is required.

Artist Eric Westbrook will lead a free charcoal landscape workshop from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. April 26 at Fairfax’s Stacy C. Sherwood Center. Participants should bring a reference photograph, charcoal pencils, vine charcoal, textured drawing paper, a kneaded eraser and a sharpener. Space is limited and registration is required.

Former Meadowlark Botanical Gardens manager Keith Tomlinson will guide a native-plant walk through the garden’s Potomac Valley Collection from 2 to 3 p.m. April 26. The program is intended for adults and children 10 and older who can navigate hilly, mulched trails. Registration costs $10.

Chocolate closes the weekend on a sweet note

The ninth D.C. Chocolate Festival comes to La Maison Française at the Embassy of France on April 24 and 25. Chocolate makers, chocolatiers and cacao specialists will offer samples, workshops, tastings and discussions about sourcing, production and flavor.

Friday’s session runs from 6 to 9 p.m. and includes a Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund awards ceremony. Saturday sessions run from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 2 to 5:30 p.m. Tickets cost $25 for guests ages 10 and older. Children younger than 10 enter free when accompanied by a ticketed adult.