Big Ambitions 2026: A Fringe Lab & Fishamble: The New Play Company Partnership
We are delighted to be announcing the fourth edition of Big Ambitions, a partnership with Fishamble: The New Play Company and FRINGE LAB, for this year’s edition of Dublin Fringe Festival. This initiative provides dramaturgical supports towards the development of two excellent new plays set to premiere in the 2026 edition of the Festival.
The artists and shows that are part of this year’s Big Ambitions scheme are:
GRETEL
TAN & JWY
Hansel and Gretel, reimagined for the concrete jungle.
Homes don’t hold. Rules don’t always stick. A sofa appears. A bag must be carried. Two young people navigate a city where survival is learned and protection isn’t guaranteed. Bass travels, the story shifts, and the audience begins to question what they believe in.
With a live DJ on stage, this solo spoken word performance blends rhythmic language with bass, silence and sound to create a live experience where the story is felt as much as it is heard.
Supported by Dublin Fringe Festival’s Break New Ground Initiative, Big Ambitions: a Dublin Fringe Festival & Fishamble: The New Play Company partnership, & Exeter Northcott Theatre. Developed at Dublin Fringe Festival Studios.
Across The Fence
Thomas Collins
A fence separates Jimmy and Aoife. It’s not the only thing standing between them.
Jimmy is a Traveller man, Aoife is a young settled girl. Through small conversations, silences and quiet moments, their relationship begins to challenge the divisions between them. As their worlds overlap, questions of prejudice, identity and trust come to the surface.
Grounded in realism and rooted in lived experience, this intimate, character-led play is a simple, human story about prejudice, trust and the power of connection across boundaries.
These shows will each have their world premiere this September at Dublin Fringe Festival 2026. Both projects will receive detailed dramaturgical mentorship from Fishamble’s Literary Manager Gavin Kostick and Literary Assistant Róisín Daly. The support is shaped by the needs of the artists.
'"Fishamble is absolutely delighted to partner with Fringe once again, to bring works by theatre artists with Big Ambitions to audiences in Dublin. Thomas and Tanya are exceptionally talented artists with a lot to say about contemporary life. We are proud to be supporting them at this stage of their artistic journey.”
Gavin Kostick, Literary Manager, Fishamble: The New Play Company
“Fishamble: The New Play Company is a world class company delivering world class supports. Working with them on Big Ambitions is a really significant partnership that underscores the centrality of new writing to Dublin Fringe Festival. We look forward to seeing how this support shapes two brilliant plays in the Festival – Across The Fence and GRETEL – two plays that are telling important and contemporary stories from writers who are at the beginning of what we are sure will be long careers.”
Katherine Murphy, Programme Manager, Dublin Fringe Festival
2026 SELECTED SHOWS AND WRITERS
GRETEL – Written by Tanya Bridgeman
Tanya Bridgeman (TAN) is a Bajan-Irish multidisciplinary performer, spoken word artist, facilitator, and writer from London. A queer, neurodivergent, working-class artist, her work blends folklore, verbatim theatre, physical storytelling, and poetic text to explore memory, identity, migration, belonging, and inherited histories. A Mountview-trained actor, Tan creates work that interrogates identity, connection, and the complexities of lived experience through visceral, embodied performance. Alongside theatre and musical theatre experience, her practice draws from immersive theatre, oral storytelling, headphone verbatim, and spoken word. She also facilitates poetry workshops and community rooted creative spaces centred around connection, voice, and storytelling, and has previously worked as a lecturer at Rose Bruford College and the University of Northampton.
Her debut play, Shoes to Fill, exploring the migration stories of her Irish grandmother and Bajan grandmother to the UK in the 1960s, received an OffWestEnd commendation. Her play White Island, developed through the Soho Writers Lab, was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award.Her current projects include These Waves Whisper, an Arts Council-funded verbatim work developed from interviews collected across Barbados, exploring oral memory, climate change, ancestry, and humanity’s evolving relationship with the ocean.
She is also developing The Skin We Shed through the Screen Ireland Spotlight Scheme. Originally developed as a play through the Rachel Baptiste Programme at Smock Alley Theatre, the work reimagines the Selkie myth to explore race, identity, intimacy, and belonging.
ACROSS THE FENCE – Written by Thomas Collins
Thomas Collins is an Irish actor from Dublin. He is a full time Graduate from Bow Street Academy. He is known for his performances across film, television, stage, and radio. His screen credits include The Gone (Season 1 & 2, Keeper Pictures) and Love/Hate (RTÉ), as well as feature films such as Thank You Come Again (Top Floor Films), Nails (Fantastic Films), and Urban Traffik (October Eleven Films).
On stage, he has appeared in productions for the Abbey Theatre, Fishamble, The Dublin Theatre Festival and The Dublin Fringe Festival. His radio work includes the award-winning No Love Lost (RTÉ Radio One), which earned him a New York Festivals Radio Award.
Alongside acting, Thomas is currently writing his debut feature film The Weight of Silence, which has received an Axis Bursary and an Arts Council Agility Award for development. He is also developing the stage play Across the Fence, with plans to advance it this year.
PARTNERSHIP HISTORY
Over the last few years, Fishamble: The New Play Company and Dublin Fringe Festival decided to formalise our play development partnership through this initiative - Big Ambitions.
Big Ambitions was initially developed in 2020 as part of FRINGE LAB’s Fringe 50, a pandemic initiative in which FRINGE LAB supported 50 artists who introduced themselves to us through our festival application process as they continued crafting and coalescing their big ideas. Through this scheme Fishamble’s Gavin Kostick provided ongoing mentorship to six new plays: Lianne O’Hara’s Fluff, William Dunleavy’s Narcissus, Harry Butler’s What Time It Shuts, Megan McDonnell’s Allie Down the Boghole, Bríd Ní Chomáin & Siofra O'Meara’s Clearance and Emma Finnegan, Sam Killian & Annachiara Vispi’s Pig Brain, several of which went on to successful premieres.
Fishamble has supported the development of the following plays through Big Ambitions:
- 2025: Am I the A**hole? by Dafe Orugbo and That’s Sooo Povo by Sophie O’Toole & Trudy Nolan, D’Girlos Theatre Company
- 2024: Ololufe by Arínọlá Theatre and Julius Caesar Variety Show by Joy Nesbitt
- 2023: Mmanwu by Dagogo Hart and Hand of God by Carley Magee & Aason Finnegan
- 2022: The Perfect Immigrant by Samuel Yakura
ABOUT FISHAMBLE: THE NEW PLAY COMPANY
Fishamble discovers, develops and produces new plays of national importance with a global reach. It has toured its productions to audiences throughout Ireland, and to 19 other countries. It champions the role of the playwright, typically supporting over 50% of the writers of all new plays produced on the island of Ireland each year. Fishamble has received many awards in Ireland and internationally, including an Olivier Award.