THE FEAST Reveals 2026 Seattle Season Including THE WEALTH WALK Remount

The Feast has announced its 2026 lineup, including a remount of last summer's smash hit The Wealth Walk, a second iteration of last year's site-specific pop-up arts festival Artists Doing, and a workshop returning to the company's 2019 production of William Saroyan's American classic The Time of Your Life. The living-wage company will round out this season offstage with an advocacy campaign, encouraging theatres around Seattle to invest in higher wages for artists.

This year's programming comes as the company aims to craft a new model for making theatre, pushing back against the standard model wherein companies do a show once and then throw it away. To create ongoing work for artists and non-disposable works that grow over time, they are pursuing their iterative, repertoire-based touring model—especially on the heels of their winter production of Inherit the Wind at Washington D.C.'s flagship regional theatre Arena Stage. The company seeks to continue to build work in a repertoire model, preparing to tour it nationally. “We brought a distinctively Feast show to D.C. this year,” says Artistic Director Ryan Guzzo Purcell. “We are hoping to bring that show to Seattle, while we workshop Time of Your Life to become part of our repertoire, looking toward to hopefully touring it to theatres around the country.”

First, in May and June, the company is remounting last year's hit The Wealth Walk. The Wealth Walk is a theatrical walking tour of the Mount Baker and Rainier Valley neighborhoods that creates an embodied metaphor for wealth inequality. It was initially developed as part of 2021's Campfire Festival, a festival of new works. The company then presented a second iteration in 2025. This production was met with huge critical and audience success, including two extensions. “We were delighted with the impact The Wealth Walk had last year, so we're excited to bring it back,” says Wealth Walk creator and Feast artistic director Ryan Guzzo Purcell, “this time with a new cast of some of Seattle's best actors (who live right in these neighborhoods). We're also looking to build deeper community connections to local organizations and schools.” This year's programming will also feature an expanded indoor version accessible to those who aren't up for a two mile walk. “We made something great. We shared it widely,” says Purcell. “But this year, we want to grow its impact.” This piece is a key example of the company's iterative model—a work that has grown through each of its three productions.

After The Wealth Walk, in August, the company will produce the second iteration of Artists Doing featuring some of Seattle's most exciting artists across disciplines: Musician Ben Hunter and Drag Performer Sherdonna Shinatra. “Last year, we kicked off our Artists Doing series, bringing together some incredible artists, and paying them a living wage to make work for a one-night-only event,” says Producing Director Annie Liu. “This year, we're thrilled to bring this event back.” The Feast will again be partnering with ACTUALIZE Artists in Residence, this time performing in their new Pioneer Square gallery. 

Next, in October, The Feast will produce a workshop of a new, experimental performance of The Time of Your Life, William Saroyan's 1939 slice-of-life drama. “Saroyan's play features a rich man trying to do good, a sex worker trying to evade a vice cop, a society couple slumming it with the riff-raff, a bored housewife looking for something to do, an old cowboy spinning tales that probably didn't happen, a teenager trying desperately to get laid, and the worst stand-up comic in history,” says Purcell. “The play is about people trying to live a life worth living. It's both a raucous and a personal story—people are singing and dancing in a honky tonk while the Great Depression rages outside.” The Feast will bring their signature style to the work, deconstructing it and reimagining it into an event that makes the audience central to the action. “You will feel like you are in the bar with these characters. You'll also see virtuosic performances, with a cast of 10 playing more than 30 characters.” The Feast first produced a workshop of The Time of Your Life in 2019. “As part of our repertoire-based model, this fall's production will be a second workshop,” says Liu, “allowing us to work on this play iteratively before it gets a full production (and hopefully touring engagements) in future years.”

Finally, throughout the year, The Feast will be launching “Theatre Artists Thrive: A Campaign for Living Wage Artistry in Seattle and Beyond,” an advocacy campaign seeking to raise artist wages across the Seattle theatre scene (and nationally). “For the last decade, The Feast has been leading by example, committing to union wages since we were a tiny theatre company, and currently paying better than theatres fifty times our size,” says Director of Communications and Advocacy Jesse Roth. “But while leading by example is important, we will not see field-wide changes through this alone.” This project will involve a report on living wages in the arts and recommendations for field-wide changes, a cohort of theatre leaders sharing skills and organizing collectively, round-tables with artists, and conversations with funders. In 2029, the company plans to host a symposium to bring leaders, funders, critics, and artists together to discuss how to make Seattle a thriving city for theatre artists. “Seattle is getting more expensive by the day. In order to have a great theatre town, artists need to be compensated well for their work. We want to team up with stakeholders across the field to shift the needle,” says Roth.