Wilde Stages 2026: An Inside Look into Dublin’s Biggest Queer Theatre Festival

“This past month, the Wilde Stages Theatre Festival has been celebrating queerness all throughout Dublin. With over thirty different shows from eight countries and five theatre venues, this festival is the largest queer theatre festival in the world. Previously known as “International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival”, this year it was retitled to better reflect the inclusivity of every part of the queer community. Named after Oscar Wilde on his 150th birthday, the new festival name pays homage to the iconic Dublin-born queer playwright. The festival was founded with the aim of promoting and celebrating the past, present, and future of queer theatre. Through the art of theatre, queer liberation is championed just as one of the festival’s ambassadors, Senator David Noris, did when he led Ireland’s gay rights movement by challenging the criminalisation of homosexuality in 1992. Several shows from this year’s programme portray the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights. Simultaneously, the festival gives space to queer artists to exist without a focus on their marginalisation. Wilde Stages serves to uplift queer voices and push the boundaries of theatre, storytelling, and art. After attending the launch party for the festival, The University Times spoke with drag queen Sean d’Olier, who gave an incredible speech introducing and outlining the events to follow. In conversation, d’Olier said, “Queer theatre is so important because it gives us an opportunity as people on the margins of society to invite in those who may not understand or may not want to understand our lived experiences, our culture, our way of life, and the way in which we love one another.” She went on to explain that, “By opening that door just a little bit and getting someone to witness us on stage, maybe they’ll be able to witness us as we walk down the street and think ‘that is a person, a human being with value’, not a person who is different, but a person who belongs within the mainstream of that society. Queer theatre brings people to the margins of society, so that those people can bring us from the margins inward.” The University Times had the pleasure of watching a few of the shows featured in the second week of the festival. The first show was One Morning at the Office, written and performed by Vandy Beth Glenn and directed by Alison Rae Clark. In her one-woman show, Glenn details her experiences as a trans woman in the US during the notorious “don’t ask, don’t tell” era with humour and grace. A stand-up comedian and performer, Glenn reached audiences with heartfelt, enlightening, and comedic anecdotes from her childhood, early adult life, and then finally her experience with discrimination on the basis of her gender while working at Georgia’s State Capitol. Glenn likened her transness before she transitioned to constant tinnitus. Glenn tells anecdotes about her dating life before she transitioned, her experiences in the Navy, and her time in Hawaii and continuously references this ringing in her ear. She describes how in Hawaii she encountered a cultural community which held space for three genders: female, male, and notably, an in-between called the “Māhū”. Glenn highlights how while she was serving in the Navy in Hawaii she became a patron at a bar where people were at all stages of transitioning. Although she could not fully be herself at work due to strict military regulations and social stigma, she found belonging and hope among other trans people. In the show, Glenn explains the double life she lived at this time, experimenting with her gender performance at night at the trans bar and then attempting to hide her painted toe-nails and shaved legs from her commanding officer in the communal showers. Glenn’s show gives weight to this history which is often referenced off-handedly through her individual story as a trans woman in this period of homophobia in the US. Not only does Glenn beautifully describe these moments of community unique to her identity as a trans woman, but she also wonderfully tells the audiences about her experiences travelling the world, giving the audience a holistic glimpse into who she is as an individual. As she noted in the show, every trans person’s experience is different, highlighting how her journey might have been different from other people’s experiences, but also in their unique perspective on the world as an individual. In so many ways, Glenn’s show encapsulates the importance of queer theatre, in the way that she highlights her own individual challenges, wins, joys, and interests, while taking the time to explain to the audience that her story as a trans woman is not universal. After serving in the Navy, Glenn worked at Georgia’s State Capitol, the office referenced in the title — One Morning at the Office — in a position which she was extremely passionate about. After slowly attempting to transition in the workplace, Glenn faced intense discrimination from her supervisor, Sewell Brumby, and he eventually fired her. With the help of an activist organisation, she took legal action against her supervisor and won! Glenn was able to return to her job as her true self. The way she performs her story remarkably demonstrates her resilience, her grace, and her humour. Glenn’s case spotlights queer oppression and resilience in a profound, witty, and real manner. Her performance was captivating in its entirety, and incredibly moving for the audience as we went along on the journey she recounted. Also hailing from the State of Georgia, UT saw 11 Hour Productions’ play The Enhanced Venus Experiment. Written by Ciara Hannon, the play immediately teleports audience members to a world of sophisticated and developing technologies, dominated by women. The show features a lesbian couple participating in a futuristic experiment, ultimately telling a tale of betrayal. The set design, costume, lights, and sound elements immerse the audience into the dystopian setting of “Eden” and dive right into the story. The two characters are confident, funny, and very sarcastic. The show was incredibly entertaining, the audience constantly on the edge of their seats. Drawing on inspirations such as Black Mirror, Severance, Divergent, and Westworld, the show caters to science fiction lovers and invites anyone unfamiliar to the genre to join in! The world building 11 Hour Productions accomplished was clearly well-researched and thorough. Hannon incorporated references to Julius Caesar and the Bible which made the debrief after the film an exciting conversation of possible meanings and theories. By utilising biblical motifs, elements, and names, Hannon aimed to use “religion as a sort of spring board to reclaim something that has pushed out queerness entirely”. 11 Hour Productions put on a show that involved queerness without queer struggles being the sole plotline, allowing lesbians to exist in art without the baggage of the struggle for queer liberation. As Hannon said, “our hope is that audiences can realise they can consume sapphic media without the queerness ever actually being mentioned. Our story is different because we’re not telling a sapphic story. We’re telling a story, sapphically.” The show also subverts norms associated with lesbian and sapphic media by portraying strong lesbain characters who battle power struggles, betrayal, and female rage. As sapphic media can more often than not portray lesbians as passive characters going through a phase with an undercurrent of misogyny in which they still cater to the male-gaze, The Enhanced Venus Experiment displaces men entirely and highlights two well-rounded lesbian characters who are more than their sexual orientation. Both One Morning at the Office and The Enhanced Venus Experiment tell unique and wildly (or Wilde-ly) engaging stories, inviting the audience to share in a personal journey and a simply interesting dystopian tale. Witnessing these queer lives and experiences up close help “bring people to the margins of society”, as d’Olier explained, welcoming everyone in to celebrate and relish in individuality, queerness, and shared community.

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