Inspired by the character of Nina Zarechnaya, the dreamy ingenue from Anton Chekhov's, The Seagull, the play is set on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Petrograd, Russia. Nina, now 42, is the artistic director of an amateur people's theatre located in the basement of the shipyard where she is employed cleaning bullet casings. Madame Zarechnaya is a love story to the theatre, exploring the communal power of story, longing, memory, and regret.