About Us

Dacha is a Seattle-based theater company that specializes in devised, immersive, and playful work.

We seek out stories that strike a chord of familiarity in our audience. We are constantly in pursuit of new ways to tell old stories and ways to make new stories resonate, to bring them to our audience at their most pure and earnest. Our stories are typically full of movement, comedy, and audience interaction. We believe that the audience is a crucial player in every story, and that stories are at their most powerful when they balance joy and despair.

At Dacha, we believe everyone has a story worth telling, and we strive to tell our stories with whomever we can.
That is why our shows and events are always ticketed on a sliding scale, and have a pay-what-you-can option, so that no one ever has a financial barrier to coming and telling stories with us.

Learn more about what Dacha is like by reading about us in the Seattle Times!
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/the-peppy-members-of-dacha-theatre-put-on-all-sorts-of-plays-but-their-camaraderie-is-no-act/

What is a Dacha?

Dacha is a Russian word that doesn’t have an English equivalent. Roughly, it means “cottage” — a country cabin, a retreat from the hum and bustle of everyday life. But a dacha is also a frame of mind. It is a time apart, a world in miniature with its own rules, customs, and rituals. A dacha is a place of order and chaos, a place for family where the generations mingle, where they help each other grow older. Children scuffle in the dirt, adults hunt for mushrooms and share whispered conversation, and Grandmother lords over the kitchen with a brandished ladle. A dacha marks the passage of time. It is a place, but also an experience of place, the combination of roofbeams, and gables, and casseroles, and cigarettes, and late-night conversation, and sun, and swimming, and most importantly, memories.

Although the word "dacha" can’t be translated, the feeling of it can be. Dacha is a theater company, but not a particularly traditional one — we don’t care about producing plays, as much as we do creating experiences. Our dacha is inclusive; we believe everyone has a story worth telling, and we endeavor to tell our stories with those who haven't traditionally been given space to do so. Our dacha is a place of ordered chaos, of rumpus, of play. We think that art tends to turn out better when everyone's having a good time, and while we don’t mandate it, our shows usually involve some scuffling around in the dirt. Our dacha is a place for story-tellers of all ages and backgrounds to share and discover, and we find the best way to captivate everyone is to include a little bit of mirth, a little bit of sadness, and a little bit of whimsy.

We produce shows for our family, and we are thrilled to welcome you into our dacha.