If your New Year’s resolution is to get out of the house more and partake in some of the city’s outstanding cultural offerings, there is no shortage of exciting events to choose from taking place at venues across the city in 2026. Here is a selection of 10 events for your consideration.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
“Hell’s Kitchen”
Featuring the music of Alicia Keys and inspired by her life story, this jukebox musical is a coming-of-age story set in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan where 17-year-old Ali navigates a contentious relationship with her mother and copes with the absence of her father while falling in love for the first time. It’s an ill-fated relationship, though, and Ali takes comfort from her troubles in her friendship with an elderly musician living in her apartment building who mentors her on love, life and music. The musical opened on Broadway in 2024 and won two Tony Awards for best actress and best featured actress. “Hell’s Kitchen” makes its Atlanta debut in January at the Fox Theatre.
Jan. 6-11. $84 and up. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. Atlanta. 404-881-2100, foxtheatre.org
Credit: Renee' Hannans Henry / AJC
Credit: Renee' Hannans Henry / AJC
Alvin Ailey
Celebrating its inaugural season under the helm of Artistic Director Alicia Graf Mack, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre returns with six performances in February. In addition to beloved favorites such as Ailey’s “Revelations” and Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace,” the company will perform the world premiere of Jamar Roberts’ “Song of the Anchorite,” an exploration of passion and devotion performed to jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s interpretation of a Ravel adagio, and Fredrick Earl Mosley’s “Embrace,” set to popular songs by Stevie Wonder, Ed Sheeran and Kate Bush.
Feb. 11-15. $51 and up. Fox Theatre. 660 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 855-285-8499, ailey.org
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
For two weeks beginning Feb. 18, the 26th annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) will screen a selection of domestic and foreign films about Jewish life and culture at various venues. The festival kicks off with an opening night extravaganza at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center featuring the screening of a film yet to be announced and food catered by local restaurants. Jury award winners will be presented at the closing night festivities to be held March 3 at the same venue. For those who prefer watching movies at home, select films will be available for streaming March 6-15. The festival lineup will be revealed at the AJFF Insider Preview event Jan. 12 featuring film clips, trailers and special appearances at The Temple (1589 Peachtree St., Atlanta). Tickets are free, but registration is required.
Feb. 18-March 15. $64 and up, early access ticket packages. Various venues. ajff.org
“Fires, Ohio”
Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s classic Russian tragicomedy “Uncle Vanya” about unfulfilled potential and unrequited love, “Fires, Ohio” has its world premiere on the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage in February. As a raging wildfire approaches, the sulky adult children and second wife of a mediocre professor await the arrival of a family friend whose visit may portend calamitous circumstances for the family. Written by Beth Hyland, the play won the 2025 Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Prize, the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Award and the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting. Marissa Wolf, artistic director of Portland Center Stage, directs. Recommended for ages 16 and up due to adult themes.
Feb. 25-March 2. $25 and up. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St., 404-733-4600, alliancetheatre.org
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Lady Gaga
Launched in July, Lady Gaga’s worldwide tour The Mayhem Ball finally comes to Atlanta’s State Farm Arena for two shows in March. According to a New York Times review, the show is “more than a big arena show. It’s a spectacle.” The theatrical production features four acts and an epilogue organized around a narrative about a rivalry between two queens, one red and one white. Among the show stoppers are “Disease,” featuring the singer half-buried in sand emerging to fight the red queen, and “Bad Romance,” in which her lifeless body is revived from a sheet-draped gurney.
March 4-5. $210 and up. State Farm Arena, 1 State Farm Arena Drive, Atlanta. ticketmaster.com
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cardi B
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, aka Cardi B, kicks off her Little Miss Drama tour in Palm Springs, California, in February, and she ends it with two shows at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena in April. The tour supports her long-awaited sophomore studio album, “Am I the Drama?,” featuring “a style of rap that is both outrageous and easily digestible, designed to travel well from the strip club to the Super Bowl,” writes Pitchfork magazine.
April 17-18. $103 and up. State Farm Arena, 1 State Farm Arena Drive, Atlanta. ticketmaster.com
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan being on tour is not news. Except for during the coronavirus pandemic, when has the 84-year-old legend not been on tour? But the fact he’s bypassing Atlanta this year to play the Macon City Auditorium is noteworthy. He last played the home of his musical hero, Little Richard, in 2018, and it’s a good fit with the other second-tier cities on the 2026 leg of his everlasting Rough and Rowdy tour. Other stops include Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dothan, Alabama; and Spartanburg, South Carolina. He’s ostensibly touring in support of his most recent album, the 2020 “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” but with an archive as deep as the Mariana Trench, there’s no telling what classic songs fans might hear.
April 22. $105 and up. Macon City Auditorium, 415 1st St., Macon. ticketmaster.com
Credit: Jeff Roffman
Credit: Jeff Roffman
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Laureate Robert Spano returns in May to conduct a program of musical scores inspired by two disillusioned wartime poets. Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is the source material for Hector Berlioz’s “Harold in Paris,” featuring ASO principal violinist Zhenwei Shi. W.H. Auden’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Age of Anxiety” inspired Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 featuring piano virtuoso Conrad Tao. Also noteworthy is Grammy-winning Jennifer Koh’s performance of Philip Glass’ Violin Concert No. 1 April 9-10.
May 7-9. $40 and up. Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-733-4800, aso.org
“Frida”
Expect a bold, multihued color palette, dancing skeletons and floral headdresses on stage when the Atlanta Ballet debuts “Frida,” a celebration of iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in May. Created by the same team that produced the Atlanta Ballet’s “Coco Chanel: The Life of a Fashion Icon” in 2024, it’s choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and set to music by Peter Salem performed by the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra conducted by Jonathan McPhee.
May 8-10. $39 and up. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. 404-916-2852, cobbenergycentre.com
Credit: Joseph Hyde
Credit: Joseph Hyde
“American Sublime”
Currently touring major cultural institutions across the country, painter Amy Sherald’s mid-career retrospective “American Sublime” comes to the High Museum of Art in May. Born in Columbus and educated at Clark University, Sherald specializes in portraits of African Americans in contemporary life and is celebrated for her 2018 official portrait of first lady Michelle Obama. Earlier this year, “American Sublime” was in the news when the artist pulled it from exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery when she discovered her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty might be censored. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and previously shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the show features 50 works spanning 2007-2024.
May 15-Sept. 27. $23.50. High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4400, high.org
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