Every year, millions of people follow Korean content without speaking a word of the language. They stream shows with subtitles, read translated song lyrics and find workarounds. But live theater has always been a different problem – you can’t pause or rewind it. Here’s the problem: A Korean startup thinks it’s cracked, and Yuroy Wang was one of the first to try. The 22-year-old retail worker from Taipei is a K-pop fan who loves Korean culture but doesn’t speak the language. When he went to see “The Second Chance Convenience Store,” a touring play based on a Korean novel that was a bestseller in Taiwan, he expected surtitles. Instead, he was given a pair of chunky AI-controlled glasses with black frames on his nose that translated dialogue in real time directly to the lenses. “When I found out they were available I couldn’t wait to try them out” he said. Wang is part of a growing audience discovering that smart glasses, a technology category that has struggled for years to find mainstream use, may have just found its purpose in a completely unexpected place: live Korean theater.
How do the glasses work?
The system, called Owl, was developed by Korean startup Xpert Inc. The glasses connect to an app on your phone, where you can choose your language (Korean, English, Japanese or Chinese), set the font size and choose where on the lenses you want the text to appear. When the actors start speaking, the AI listens for keywords and adapts the translations to the dialogue in real time. Unlike traditional supertitles or tablet-based subtitles that require your eyes to jump back and forth between the stage and the screen, these keep everything in view. The audience remains present in the performance rather than chasing the text on the wall.
There are still rough edges. Synchronization issues occasionally arise, improvised lines can throw the system out of sync, and wearing them over existing prescription glasses is a bit awkward. Xpert Inc recognizes that sometimes technology still needs a human to step in and fix things. But a lighter model is already coming to market this spring, and improved accuracy is the company’s next stated priority.
Why Korean theater?
South Korea has been exporting theater within Asia for over a decade, but things have changed recently. The musical “Maybe Happy Ending,” which premiered at a small theater in Seoul in 2016, reached Broadway with an English translation in 2024 and swept the Tonys the following year with six wins. That single moment opened a door that producers across Korea are now rushing through.
The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is providing $18 million in funding for Korean musicals this year alone, $14 million more than in 2025. The Korea Tourism Organization has already run a program called Smart Theater, which funds AI glasses at venues in Seoul and select events abroad. Shows eligible for the program are selected based on their potential to attract foreign audiences, with accessible themes, international source material and K-pop music giving certain productions an edge. The results were noticeable. In productions like “The Second Chance Convenience Store,” “Inside Me” and “Finding Mr. Destiny,” non-Korean visitors were almost gone and now they can be seen almost daily.
The bigger bet: Keep it Korean
What makes this experiment really interesting is the philosophy behind it. Hwang Ki Hyun, the producer of “The Second Chance Convenience Store,” has twice rejected proposals to perform his show in other languages. He assumes that foreign viewers want Korean content in Korean and that the glasses will make that work.
It’s not a crazy bet. BTS fans have long advocated listening to their music in the original Korean rather than in translation. The same instinct shows itself in film, in beauty and in food. The appeal of Korean culture to many of its global audiences is that it feels distinctly and authentically Korean. A translation could dilute the very thing people came for.
So can this actually scale?
There are real obstacles between the current state of affairs and a full wave of Korean theater reaching Western stages. Union rules in New York, for example, would likely turn a Broadway performance of a Korean production into an English-language performance, regardless of what glasses the audience wears. But researchers and industry representatives abroad are watching developments closely. Sarah Bay-Cheng, professor of emerging technologies in theater at the University of Toronto, sees Korea as a useful test case. If the glasses catch on there, they could make live performances accessible to audiences that were previously inaccessible, regardless of language.
Smart captioning glasses from British companies Built for Good and Xrai Glass are already hitting theaters in the US and Europe, so the technology isn’t just spreading to Korean productions. But Korea is the place where cultural ambition and technological experimentation collide at the same time, and that combination makes it worth watching. The glasses are imperfect, the theater industry is competitive, Broadway isn’t exactly waiting with open arms, but for a 22-year-old in Taipei who just wanted to follow the story, they worked so well that he would use them again.
I would really like to see this expanded beyond just a handful of regions. The idea that you can attend a live theater performance in a language you don’t speak and still follow every moment just by wearing smart glasses feels almost surreal. It removes the invisible barrier that usually limits experiences like this. You no longer have to rely on subtitles on a screen or prior language skills. Instead, the story unfolds naturally before you, completely immersing you in the story without making you feel like an outsider. If this becomes widely available, it could completely transform the way people experience art and culture across borders. And honestly, that’s what makes it so exciting.
