Russian theater has played an important role in the country's culture. Because of the nature of Russia's political past, theater has experienced extreme periods of artistic freedom, but also censorship and conformity. Theater in Russia has been able to appeal to the lower classes of agricultural regions, but also the upper class society of its major cities.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Russian theater was pagan shows that were dramatic retellings of fables and tales with singing and dancing, performed by traveling minstrels known as skomorokhi. Alternatively, churches were performing stories from the bible in dramatic productions. In 1702, the first public theater was built in Moscow after an order by Peter the First. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, serfs, agricultural laborers who were bound under the feudal system to work on the estate of a lord, began staging their own theatrical productions. Amateur theater troupes began forming around this time, while well-known dramatists like Alexander Griboyedov and Nikolai Gogol were writing plays in Saint Petersburg. Russian Operatic theater began to experience a large change due to new innovative musical compositions.

After the Russian Empire became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) in 1918, the country experienced a period of eleven years where, publically, artistic expression was allowed and artists, including those in the theater world, experimented with different styles to find a distinct new "Soviet" style. However, many intellectuals, artists, and writers were being quietly exiled and their work banned. After those eleven years, artistic experimentation was discouraged and artists were forced to conform to the frames of the accepted Soviet ideology. Eventually, musical theater, ballet, and dramatic theater experienced a revival towards the end of the Soviet period.

The U.S.S.R dissolved in 1991, and as of 2018, Russian theater is exploring political perspectives, experimenting with live mixing of electronic music in performance, and incorporating slang and a hybridization of English and Russian language into productions.