Second Age Theatre Company was established in 1989 by Alan Stanford, Ronan Smith, Brian O'Donoghue and Martin Drury as a response to the demand from Second Level schools for a dedicated production company to present curriculum based texts, especially those of William Shakespeare.
At that time, ad hoc productions were occasionally staged but of an uneven quality and at irregular intervals.
Second Age focused on producing Shakespeare and contemporary Irish classics for young audiences with particular emphasis on the plays being studied by Second Level Leaving Certificate students.
Between 1989 and 2013 well over half a million second level students gained their first experience of serious professional theatre and of Shakespeare at a Second Age production.
Other plays on the Leaving Certificate syllabus were also staged when time and resources permitted, and included, The Plough and the Stars, The Playboy of the Western World, Philadelphia, Here I Come!