How Ignite Kirkland Funding Helped Resonance Studio Theatre Build a Permanent Home for Bilingual Theater on the Eastside

For many people, theater is a place to see a performance. At Resonance Studio Theatre, it is also a place to find community.

Resonance creates bilingual theater experiences for children, adults, and entire families. Its programs are especially meaningful for immigrants who are building new lives on the Eastside while looking for ways to remain connected to their language, culture, and one another. Through performances, classes, workshops, and community celebrations, Resonance helps people find their place and their voice through the arts.

“Many people have come recently and have not yet adapted to life in the United States,” explained Resonance volunteer and grant writer Veronika Tchesnokova. “For them to find a place where their children can participate, speak Russian, learn, and be onstage means a lot.”
Some families arrive from Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and other countries of the former Soviet Union with limited financial resources and few local connections. Resonance gives them a welcoming place to begin building both.

The organization offers drama, voice, movement, and performance opportunities for children, teens, and adults. Families may attend together, take classes together, and even appear together onstage. Resonance estimates that approximately 70 to 80 people form the core of its community, with more than 150 participating regularly and a much larger audience attending its performances and cultural events throughout the year.

But the impact is not limited to what happens onstage.

During a recent performance, Resonance invited older adults from the community to attend at no cost. Many had few opportunities to participate in activities conducted in their first language or to meet others with similar experiences. Volunteers welcomed them, introduced audience members to one another, and helped people discover shared connections.

Even intermission became part of the experience.

“It is time to talk,” Veronika said. “We start connecting people with each other. We might say, ‘Have you met? You are from the same region.’ We want to create a community. We want to make people feel good.”

Helping a Growing Organization Take Its Next Step

The Kirkland Community Foundation first connected with Resonance Studio Theatre through Ignite Kirkland.

In 2025, Ignite Kirkland funding supported Resonance’s Old New Year celebration, a cultural event that welcomed more than 100 people. The funding helped cover entertainment, food, and free tickets for community members who otherwise might not have been able to attend.

“Without the funding, we definitely would not have been able to give out the free tickets,” Veronika said. “The event would have been much less. The free tickets were especially important.”

Resonance returned to Ignite Kirkland in 2026 as the organization prepared for an extraordinary milestone: opening its first permanent home.

For years, the organization rented temporary spaces, often with limited capacity and considerable expense. Classes filled quickly, families asked to participate, and performances regularly reached capacity. Resonance needed more room, but finding an affordable and welcoming space proved difficult.

This year, the organization signed a five-year lease for a new facility in Redmond, close to transit and easily accessible to families from across the Eastside. The new home gives Resonance room to expand its classes, performances, and community gatherings.

Its first production in the new space brought several families together to perform Fiery Heart, an adaptation of The Snow Queen. The children playing the central characters were siblings, and their mother played the Snow Queen. It was exactly the kind of multigenerational experience Resonance was created to provide. The production is among the recent performances featured by Resonance Studio Theatre.

The organization’s 2026 Ignite Kirkland award will help fund a free grand opening celebration. Because those program expenses are covered, Resonance can preserve more of its limited operating revenue for rent and the ongoing costs of maintaining its new home.

The grant supports an event and is aligned with the Foundation’s Arts & Culture area of impact, but its effect will reach even further. It gives a growing nonprofit more room to become sustainable while keeping an important community celebration open and accessible.

More Than a Grant

For Resonance, the partnership with the Foundation has also created connections beyond funding.

After meeting through Ignite Kirkland, Veronika participated in a Foundation event where she connected with Trish from St. John’s Episcopal Church. Before Resonance secured its own facility, that relationship led to affordable space for classes at the church’s parish hall.

“I did not know anything when I first emailed,” Veronika recalled. “You immediately said, ‘Absolutely apply,’ and gave me advice about what would make a strong project. At the event, I met so many nice people. That connection helped us a lot.”

That is an important part of what the Foundation is here to do.

Sometimes impact begins with a grant. Sometimes it begins by introducing two people who can help one another. Often, it is both.

Resonance Studio Theatre has now grown from renting small, temporary spaces to creating a permanent cultural home. Along the way, it has welcomed newly arrived families, created opportunities for children and adults, offered free access to people with limited resources, and built a community in which people know they are not alone.

“I learned that I can do it,” Veronika said. “I can write grants. We can grow. And we can do it as a community.”

That is belonging in action: having a place to gather, a voice that is heard, and a community ready to welcome you.

Founded in 2014, the Kirkland Community Foundation is a local community foundation supporting nonprofits across Kirkland and the Eastside. We connect donors, nonprofits, and community priorities through grants, partnerships, and local giving that strengthen our parks, people, and shared future. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 46‑4931717), we invest in thriving nonprofits, visible community impact, and trusted local leadership.