Be warned. They are energised and ready to perform. The players about to take part in the upcoming ESB Dublin Fringe Festival took possession of SoSume on South Great Georges Street to party before a great splurge of creativity is unleashed on an unsuspecting public in late September.
The venue was packed to the gills. All the directors, actors, producers and their friends came to spread the word. We are all invited to the newest shows in town starting on September 23rd. Leaflets about fringe plays and performances were picked up and passed on from one to another like sticky buns, while guests at the launch of the ESB Dublin Fringe Festival programme ran the gauntlet of the leaflet touts.
"It's an opportunity to be involved in a festival where you get promoted outside of doing it yourself," explained Jo Mangan, who is directing Voltaire's Candide, adapted by herself and her husband, Tom Swift, to be staged at The Viking Centre. "There's a huge interest among people who don't go to the theatre normally. It's all mad, like at this, it's jammers . . . You never know what you're going to come across. You read the brochure and you take your chances."
There are 80 separate events, 30 venues and up to 537 performances planned, said Vallejo Gantner, the festival's director and programmer. "The fun part begins now as the ideas jump from this brochure onto a stage . . . it's a series of unexpected journeys through ideas, themes and possibilities - so pick your pathway and explore."
The Gaiety School of Acting takes part for the first time this year with one of its graduation plays, What The Dead Want by Alex Johnston, said the school's director, Patrick Sutton.
Also, Magdalen, a new play by Sutton, who writes under the pseudonym Tony Barrow, will be performed at Andrews Lane Studio.
Brian Lavery, a New York Times reporter based in Dublin for the past four years, was collecting a programme too, just back from last weekend's Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Listowel. Delighted at the inter-generational shindig in Kerry where young and old enjoyed set dancing and céilí music in one great orgy of celebration, he said the place attracted more than 200,000 people to the town of 35 pubs - with many of the participants wearing the Kerry colours while they danced, he recalled.
New Ross man, Martin d'French, was busy telling people about the one-woman Frank McGuinness play, Baglady, which will be performed in St Michael and John's Church during the festival by Imelda McDonagh.
Come see a story about "confused love, shipwrecks and cross-dressing," said Myles Breen, who'll be appearing in Shakepeare's Twelfth Night in The Crypt during the festival.
The festival runs from September 23rd to October 12th.
"And when the night rolls on, and you finally run out of shows, you can catch all of the festival highlights and lowlifes . . . until the wee small hours," said Gantner, at the festival club at 4 Dame Lane. In the meantime, he advises: "take a breath, get some sleep and get ready".