What to See at Theatre33: A Guide to the 2026–27 Theater Season in Bellevue
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If you are looking for live theater in Bellevue and Seattle’s Eastside, Theatre33’s 2026–27 season offers something unusually difficult to summarize in a single genre, language, or theatrical tradition.
Over the course of the season, audiences will encounter Pablo Picasso in Nazi-occupied Paris, the troubled world of Maxim Gorky, the uncompromising writing of Sarah Kane, the music of Tchaikovsky transformed into theater, Sam Shepard’s explosive American drama, Russian comedy, contemporary adaptations, family productions, and a musical journey through the imagination of Dr. Seuss.
Theatre33’s 2026–27 lineup includes English- and Russian-language productions, contemporary and classic drama, comedy, youth theater, family performances, and musical theater. The season reflects Theatre33’s identity as a multilingual community theater based in Bellevue’s BelRed Arts District and serving audiences throughout Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Seattle, and the Eastside.
Rather than building a season around one theatrical style, Theatre33 is presenting stories that repeatedly return to a few big questions: How do people live with one another? What happens when the structures we trust begin to collapse? What do we inherit from our families? And how can imagination—whether through painting, music, literature, or theater—change the way we see the world?
Here is a closer look at what audiences can experience during Theatre33’s 2026–27 season.
A Picasso — Art, Power and Survival
The season opens with Jeffrey Hatcher’s A Picasso, an intimate two-character drama set in Paris in 1941.
Pablo Picasso is summoned to meet a mysterious woman representing the German authorities during the Nazi occupation of France. Her request initially appears straightforward: she wants Picasso to authenticate several works attributed to him.
But this is not really a conversation about authentication.
As the encounter develops, the stakes become increasingly personal and political. The two characters circle questions of artistic ownership, truth, power, identity and the responsibility of an artist living under an authoritarian regime.
The result is part psychological duel, part dark comedy and part historical drama. With only two people in the room, every shift in power matters. Charm becomes strategy. Humor becomes defense. Even the definition of what makes a work of art “real” becomes dangerous.
Theatre33’s production of A Picasso by Jeffrey Hatcher is presented in English and opens the mainstage season October 16, with performances continuing through October 25, 2026.
For audiences searching for contemporary drama or live theater in Bellevue, A Picasso offers an unusually concentrated theatrical experience: two actors, one room, and a confrontation in which ideas can carry as much danger as actions.
Alice’s Magical Journey — Imagination for the Whole Family
The season also invites younger audiences into a very different world with Волшебное путешествие Алисы — Alice’s Magical Journey.
Inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, this original stage adaptation follows Alice into a landscape where riddles, impossible logic and unexpected characters constantly challenge the rules of reality.
Rather than simply recreating one familiar version of Alice in Wonderland, Theatre33’s production draws upon Carroll’s imaginative universe to create a theatrical journey centered on curiosity, creativity and the courage to encounter the unknown.
The production is presented in Russian and is designed for audiences ages five and older. Theatre33 describes it as a family experience of approximately one hour, with performances at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.
The production also represents an important part of Theatre33’s broader work: Russian-language family theater in Bellevue and Greater Seattle. Theatre33 regularly develops productions that allow children to experience literature through live performance rather than only through the page or screen.
For families across Bellevue, Redmond and the Eastside looking for Russian-language cultural programming, Alice’s Magical Journey offers an accessible entry point into both theater and classic literature.
Vassa — Maxim Gorky and the Cost of Holding a Family Together
Another major Russian-language production in the season is Васса — Vassa, based on Maxim Gorky’s earlier version of the play.
At the center is Vassa, a mother determined to protect her children and preserve the world she has built around them.
But preservation has a price.
Vassa is prepared to lie, manipulate and control the people around her if that is what she believes her family’s survival requires. The play transforms the idea of maternal protection into something far more complicated: Where does responsibility end and domination begin? When does keeping a family together become a form of destruction?
Gorky’s work is often associated with enormous social forces, but Vassa is powerful precisely because those forces become intensely personal. Economic pressure, family loyalty, ambition and fear all enter the same household.
The production also reinforces Theatre33’s commitment to presenting Russian-language theater in Bellevue that extends beyond the most frequently produced Russian playwrights. Theatre33’s Russian repertoire includes classics, contemporary work, international plays in translation, comedy, family productions and experimental theater.
4.48 Psychosis — Sarah Kane Without Easy Answers
The season moves into dramatically different territory with 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.
Few contemporary plays have generated as much discussion about theatrical form.
Kane’s final work does not provide audiences with a conventional plot, clearly identified characters or an ordinary dramatic structure. Instead, language comes in fragments: conversations, numbers, observations, repetitions, silences and moments of startling clarity.
Because the text refuses to tell a theater exactly how it should be staged, every production must make fundamental choices about voice, bodies, space and meaning.
That makes 4.48 Psychosis particularly suited to Theatre33’s interest in theatrical experimentation.
The play asks the audience to experience thought and consciousness rather than simply follow a sequence of external events. It is challenging work, but also deeply theatrical because the meaning is created partly by what happens between the text, performers and audience.
For people interested in contemporary theater in Bellevue, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis represents one of the season’s boldest departures from traditional dramatic storytelling.
Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album — When Music Becomes Theater
Детский альбом Чайковского — Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album approaches storytelling from yet another direction.
Instead of beginning with a traditional play, the production takes inspiration from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s collection of piano miniatures known as Children’s Album.
Each composition captures a small emotional or imaginative world: play, sadness, toys, dreams, fairy-tale images and moments drawn from childhood.
Theatre33’s production transforms those musical miniatures into theatrical scenes through music, movement and storytelling, inviting young audiences not only to hear Tchaikovsky’s music but to see it take physical and dramatic form.
Presented in Russian, Children’s Album is both family theater and an introduction to classical music.
It also demonstrates how broad the definition of children’s theater can be. A family production does not have to rely only on familiar cartoon characters or conventional fairy tales. Music itself can become the starting point for imagination.
For parents searching for Russian family theater, children’s performances or cultural activities in Bellevue, this production brings classical music and theater together in a form designed to be immediate and accessible.
The Suicide — Nikolai Erdman’s Dangerous Comedy
Nikolai Erdman’s Самоубийца — The Suicide brings political satire and dark comedy into the season.
Its premise is both absurd and unsettling.
An ordinary man, Semyon Podsekalnikov, finds himself in a desperate personal situation. The people around him conclude that he intends to die. But instead of simply trying to stop him, representatives of different social groups begin imagining how his death might serve their own purposes.
Everyone wants his final act to mean something.
Preferably something useful to them.
Erdman uses this increasingly ridiculous situation to expose vanity, ideology, opportunism and the human desire to turn someone else’s suffering into a symbol.
Although the play emerged from a very particular historical environment, the satire remains recognizable whenever institutions, movements or individuals attempt to claim ownership of another person’s story.
Presented as part of Theatre33’s Russian-language programming, The Suicide adds an important strain of theatrical comedy to a season containing several intense dramas.
Fool for Love — Sam Shepard in the Mojave Desert
In March, Theatre33 turns to one of the defining voices of modern American theater with Fool for Love by Sam Shepard.
The setting is simple: a rundown motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert.
May is trying to create a new life. Then Eddie arrives.
Almost immediately, affection and hostility become impossible to separate.
The relationship between May and Eddie is physical, volatile and deeply rooted in a past neither seems capable of escaping. As pieces of that history are revealed, what initially looks like the story of former lovers becomes something considerably darker and more complicated.
Watching over the action is the mysterious Old Man, a character who exists somewhere between memory and reality.
Shepard compresses family history, obsession, identity, desire and violence into a play that can feel simultaneously realistic and mythic.
Theatre33’s English-language production runs in March 2027 and is directed by Jenny Cross.
For audiences interested in American drama and live theater on Seattle’s Eastside, Fool for Love provides one of the season’s most physically and emotionally intense experiences.
The Secret Garden — One Story, Two Theatrical Lives
One of the most intriguing features of Theatre33’s season is its exploration of The Secret Garden in both Russian and English.
This is not simply a conventional staging of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.
Theatre33’s adaptation relocates the story from the traditional English manor to modern-day America.
A father loses his job and moves with his two teenage daughters into a roadside motel. Overwhelmed by depression and a sense of failure, he increasingly withdraws from his children.
The sisters spend the summer near a swimming pool that is closed for repairs, where they meet people living and working around the motel. Those unexpected relationships gradually begin to change the way the girls understand themselves, their father and what it means to rebuild a family.
The “secret garden” therefore becomes something more metaphorical: a hidden possibility for connection inside an environment that at first appears temporary, broken and ordinary.
The Russian-language Таинственный сад runs before the English-language version, while The Secret Garden, presented in English, follows in May 2027. The English adaptation is directed by Marianna Chebotaryova.
Presenting related versions across languages also captures something essential about Theatre33’s identity. Multilingual theater is not simply about translating words. Different audiences, actors and languages can reveal different dimensions of the same story.
Seussical Jr. — A Youth Musical Filled With Imagination
Later in May, Theatre33’s youth performers take the stage with Seussical Jr.
The musical combines characters and worlds from numerous Dr. Seuss stories into one exuberant theatrical adventure.
At the center is Horton the Elephant, who discovers the tiny community of Whoville living on a speck of dust. No one else can hear them, but Horton refuses to abandon them.
Around that central story appear Jojo, the Cat in the Hat, Gertrude McFuzz, Mayzie La Bird and other familiar Seuss characters.
Beneath its bright colors and humor, Seussical Jr. carries themes that fit surprisingly well with the rest of Theatre33’s season: believing people whose voices are ignored, remaining loyal when doing so is difficult, embracing individuality, and having the courage to defend what matters.
The production features a book by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, music by Flaherty and lyrics by Ahrens, based on the works of Dr. Seuss. Theatre33’s production is directed by Ashlie Blaske and runs May 21–23, 2027.
For families searching for youth theater or musical theater in Bellevue, Seussical Jr. provides one of the season’s largest celebrations of young performers.
The Servant of Two Masters — Ending With Comic Chaos
The 2026–27 lineup also includes Слуга двух господ — The Servant of Two Masters, Carlo Goldoni’s enduring comedy.
Its central idea is wonderfully simple.
Truffaldino, an energetic and perpetually hungry servant, decides that working for one master is not enough. If he can secretly serve two employers at the same time, he can earn twice as much.
There is only one condition: neither master can discover the other.
What follows is a machine built for theatrical chaos—misdirected letters, mistaken identities, romantic complications, frantic improvisation and increasingly desperate attempts to prevent the truth from emerging.
Goldoni’s comedy draws on the traditions of commedia dell’arte while giving its characters recognizable human desires and weaknesses.
After a season containing political tension, family conflict, psychological intensity and emotional confrontation, The Servant of Two Masters offers a reminder that theater can also bring people together through sheer comic pleasure.
One Season, Many Ways Into Theater
Taken together, Theatre33’s 2026–27 season is difficult to place into a single category—and that is precisely its strength.
A historical two-hander such as A Picasso sits beside Russian classics and satire. Sarah Kane’s radically open dramatic form shares a season with Tchaikovsky, Sam Shepard and Dr. Seuss. Young performers occupy the same broader artistic ecosystem as adult mainstage actors. English-language theater exists alongside a substantial Russian-language repertoire.
The result is not simply a collection of productions.
It is a picture of what a multilingual community theater in Bellevue can be.
Theatre33 serves audiences from Bellevue as well as Redmond, Kirkland, Seattle and communities throughout the Eastside, while creating a space where different languages and theatrical traditions can coexist.
Some audience members may come for a playwright they already know. Others may discover Russian-language theater for the first time. Families may enter through Alice, Tchaikovsky or Seussical Jr. and encounter an organization producing challenging adult work at the same time.
That breadth creates multiple ways to become part of the Theatre33 community.
Discover Live Theater in Bellevue This Season
For anyone asking what to see in Bellevue during the 2026–27 theater season, Theatre33 offers ten productions spanning drama, comedy, Russian-language theater, family performances, contemporary work and youth musical theater.
Whether you are drawn to the intellectual tension of A Picasso, the family world of Vassa, Sarah Kane’s experimental writing, Tchaikovsky’s music, Erdman’s satire, Sam Shepard’s emotional intensity, a new interpretation of The Secret Garden, the imagination of Seussical Jr., or Goldoni’s comic chaos, there is no single way to experience this season.
That may be the best invitation Theatre33 can offer:
Choose the story that speaks to you—and then come back for one that takes you somewhere completely different.
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