DUNDALK Drama International takes place from Saturday next until Sunday, June 2nd, writes Padraic O'Farrell. This annual hosting of community theatre enthusiasts from around the globe is lively, interesting and packed with theatrical events. Visiting companies this year will include Theatre Mwlan, Dyfed, from Wales, and Muskogee Little Theatre, from Oklahoma. Irish companies include Lifford Players with Remembrance by Graham Reid, Sundrive Players, Dublin with The Mai and Kilmeen Players, County Cork with Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa. Annette G. Procumier from Ontario will adjudicate... Tonight sees the launch of a new Early Music Festival in Sligo, writes Michael Dervan. Based in the Model Arts Centre, the programme includes workshops, lectures and muster classes. To book, phone 07141405... The list of NCH board members, published here last week, omitted one name, Fergus Johnston, composer and member of Aosdana... "This is the finest Irish company to appear on an English stage since Joe Dowling's Juno and the Paycock; and Derbhle Crotty's Portia is the performance of a lifetime." So said the Sunday Telegraph last week, in one of the many enthusiastic British reviews of Marina Carr's new play, Portia Coughlan, which has transferred from the Abbey to the Royal Court in London... Soprano Virginia Kerr is the winner of this year's Margaret Burke Sheridan Gold Medal Award... English architect, Ted Cullinane, gives a lecture on "Building in Cities" at the Edmund Burke Theatre in TCD tonight at 8 pm... Next Tuesday sees the 35th birthday of Amnesty International, which will be celebrated at the Oisin Gallery in Westland Row, Dublin, with an auction and exhibition of paintings by John Skelton, Norman McCaig and others. The exhibition will be opened by the Honourable Judge Catherine McGuinness, chairperson of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.