TNT theatre was founded in the 1980’s in Britain. Three actors split off from one of the first properly funded experimental theatre company in the UK: TRIPLE ACTION, and one of them was Paul Stebbings, TNT's artistic director. Their background and impetus came from abroad especially the work of Grotowski (with whom Paul had done some training in Poland and UK with Triple Action) but also Brecht and Barba (Odin theatre).

In 1993 Paul Stebbings crossed paths with Grantly Marshall, and TNT gradually started to be produced within that umbrella organisation until Paul Stebbings became artistic director of both. Therefore TNT and ITCL/ADG-Europe often work in combination.

In 2001, Paul thought they should try Shakespeare. TNT’s MACBETH was the result. Taking physical theatre, music theatre and pushing the supernatural while staying within the historical context that Shakespeare intended proved a success. This has been the most performed version of that tragedy worldwide since its premier.

From then on they created a string of Shakespeare productions, the sequence of which is as follows: MACBETH, MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, HAMLET, ROMEO & JULIET, KING LEAR, TAMING OF  THE SHREW, OTHELLO, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE TEMPEST, TWELFTH NIGHT and the current widely acclaimed version of JULIUS CAESAR. Most of these productions have been revived and developed, sometimes in a different language. At the heart of the work is a desire to tell the story, to bring TNT's style to the plays but also to let the plays breathe and not burden them with a director's (or designer's) ego, to search for their essence and to play to the text. TNT's Shakespeare cycle has been seen by more people in more countries than any other Shakespeare company's work in the last ten years. It seems TNT's style is especially suited to the Bard’s work and this has been appreciated in wildly different venues across the planet from Nicaragua to Cambodia, from Berlin to Atlanta and London to Shanghai.