Bulgakov had a long and complicated relationship with the Moscow Art Theatre, which is partly described in Theatrical Novel. The premier of The Days of the Turbins took place here on 5th October 1926. The Run, The Cabal of Hypocrites, Batumi, and many other plays were written specifically for the Moscow Art Theatre, and in 1930, Bulgakov was enrolled there as an assistant director. By the way, in Bulgakov’s time, the lane was aptly named ‘Art Theatre Passage’.

In November 1933, according to E. Bulgakova, the writer asked the artists at the Moscow Art Theatre to ‘give [him] the role of the judge in The Pickwick Club and the Hetman in The Turbins’, and the request was partially granted – Bulgakov was approved for the role of the president of the court (scene five, act three). At the end of the month, the rehearsals began and the premier took place in December 1934. Regardless of the fact that in Charles Dickens’ novel, Judge Stareleigh is a minor character, the writer approached the role with extraordinary attention to detail and created a character typical of Bulgakov’s work. V. Shverubovich remembered Bulgakov the actor well: ‘He was still Bulgakov when he ran up to the stage from the auditorium, but walking alongside the stage, he transformed and he was already the Judge by the time he was climbing up the stairs. And this Judge was a spider. Mikhail Afanasevich thought it up… that the Judge should be a spider. Either a tarantula, or a garden spider, or a crab – some kind of arachnid. This is how he looked – with his head sunken into his shoulders, arms and legs bent, whitened eyes, unmoving and glowering with a grimacing mouth.’ The artists at the Moscow Art Theatre were delighted with Bulgakov’s artistic talent. Congratulating the writer, V. Nemirovich-Danchenko said, ‘A new actor has been discovered…’, and K. Stanislavsky did not even recognise the actor, but later also remarked upon Bulgakov’s talent.

Alongside his role in the show in 1934-1935, Bulgakov took part in the radio show, The Pickwick Club.