Sugarglass Theatre was founded in Dublin in 2012 by four graduates of the theatre department at Trinity College Dublin. Our work has been seen on stages across Ireland and internationally, and has been written about in The Times (UK), The Irish Times, Irish Independent, New York Times and various other international publications. We specialise in visually striking work which harnesses the unique power of live theatre to provoke and to move. We value the sheer magic of theatrical illusion as much as the visceral gut punch of a truthful performance and embodied physicality’s which cannot be faked. In particular, our work mines classic texts to bring to the fore their contemporary currency on an Irish stage.

Sugarglass began with the critically-acclaimed All Hell Lay Beneath - an immersive adaptation of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf spread out across a 5 story building in Dublin’s city centre and featuring over 30 performers. Premiered at the Dublin International Fringe Festival, this production became a cult hit with audiences and critics alike. The Irish Times selected the production as one of the nation’s “cultural highlights of the year” in 2012 and said of the production, “dizzyingly ambitious, wonderfully inventive and richly immersive … heavenly”. Despite it’s short run, the production had an international impact with newspapers such as Poland’s Gazette Wyborcza featuring the piece in their reports from the festival. The play was nominated for the highly coveted Spirit of the Fringe award and launched the young company as major players on the Irish stage.

Sugarglass then presented the Irish premiere of Philip Ridley’s play Tender Napalm. This production starring Aaron Heffernan (War of the Worlds; Love/Hate) and Erica Murray received major accolades from the Irish press and was featured on The Works on RTE 1 (Ireland’s national broadcaster).

Sugarglass also produced Ethica: Four Shorts by Samuel Beckett which toured internationally and was invited to be produced at the Residence of the Irish President as part of Ireland’s celebration of International Human Right’s Day. The production was invited to the National Academy of Bulgaria by the Irish embassy and also toured to the International Happy Days Festival in Enniskillen - the world’s most prominent festival celebrating the work of Samuel Beckett.

Our production of David Greig’s Outlying Islands was produced in New York City at the Connelly Theatre and in Dublin at the Samuel Beckett Theatre. The production starred Jefferson White (Jimmy Hurdstrom - Yellowstone) and was hailed by Ireland’s Sunday Business Post as “an excellent piece of stagecraft” and was selected as “theatre pick of the week” by The Sunday Times (UK).

As a company Sugarglass also produced Lapse with Shane Gillen, Illusion with Science Gallery International, and the world premiere of Five Minutes Later by Ellen Flynn at the Irish National Academy of Theatre (The Lir).

More recently Sugarglass has become the producer of independent projects by founding director Marc Atkinson Borrull. Productions developed by Marc include Children of the Sun which was recently workshopped by The Gate Theatre with the support of an Irish Arts Council Project Award and by Druid Theatre.

Our work has been supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and by Áras an Uachtaráin (Residence of the Irish President), The Gate Theatre, Druid Theatre, Irish Repertory off-Broadway, Irish Arts Center, The National Theatre Academy of Bulgaria, The National Academy of Theatre Ireland (The Lir), Trinity College Dublin, Science Gallery Dublin, Science Gallery International, International Human Rights Day Ireland and Columbia University.

In 2023, Sugarglass will produce a workshop of Children of the Sun by Matthew Minnicino after Maxim Gorky off-Broadway in New York City, followed by an Irish and US tour of the full production in 2024. Other upcoming projects include a new play Dandelion by award-winning playwright Melis Aker, the premiere production of a new play by Kwaku Fortune (workshopped at the Dublin International Theatre Festival in 2022) and a new adaptation of Hamlet starring Jefferson White (Yellowstone) set to premiere in the USA in 2025.