Adam Green and Eamonn Doyle: (Bristlebird) Sound Artists Datsincredible

Even before a Master's in music and media technology brought them together in 1996, these two had plenty in common; then discontented biochemistry students at different colleges dabbling in similar musical interests on the side, they've now left the test tubes behind and operate their Bristlebird company from their Lansdowne Road studio. But they're still very much in the business of experimentation. Their first solo piece is described by Green as "a sort of fixed environment interactive installation". Datsincredible combines the kitsch appeal of a 1970s Datsun with the breathtaking display of what, these days, can be achieved just by twiddling a few buttons and knobs. "With this show," say Bristlebird, "we're re-addressing what music is and how it can be distributed as an art form. We're looking at ways of putting sound and music out into the public arena other than just by performance or recording."

Datsincredible runs at Temple Bar Square from September 26th to October 15th, Tuesday-Saturday, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

David Parnell: (Guna Nua Theatre Company) Director Burn This

He is already well known to theatre audiences for a number of acclaimed Abbey performances, in shows including Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Dancing at Lughnasa, and for his own writing for stage, yet as a director, this Dubliner still feels somewhat insecure. "Because you can't audition for a directing job," he explains. "You've got to work away on your own thing." Parnell's co-foundation of Guna Nua in 1998 provided a platform for just such independent endeavour; presenting the Fringe audience with Lanford Wilson's arresting drama of Burn This - about how the death of a dancer results in a relationship which collapses boundaries between art and life - is his way of showing that it pays off.

Burn This runs at Bewley's Cafe Theatre from September 26th to 30th at 8 p.m.

Douglas Rankine: (Calypso) Actor Asylum Ball

Fresh from the Gaiety School of Acting, Douglas Rankine now works alongside some of Ireland's most established actors. Along with Gerald McSorley and Ingrid Craigie, the 26-year-old Scotsman will feature in Asylum Ball, written by Gavin Kostick and directed by Bairbre Ni Chaoimh. The play's treatment of the collapse of a gifted musician, played by McSorley, into the nightmare of schizophrenia has prompted Rankine to consider more seriously the responsibilities of his chosen career: "You can see mental breakdown done very badly on stage," he says. "You have to work with one aim - understanding the character."

Asylum Ball runs at the SFX City Theatre from September 25th to 30th at 8 p.m.

Wendy Houstoun: (Wendy Houstoun Co) Creator Happy Hour

Writing and performing quirky, energetic shows with a range of English companies doesn't leave her much time for pub crawls, but recently Wendy Houstoun has been passing her hours tucked away in the snugs of lounge bars, eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers. It's all in the line of work, though. A fast-paced hybrid of comedy, dance and theatre, Happy Hour takes for its inspiration the smoky, sordid, sozzled atmosphere of a crowded drinking establishment, and for accuracy's sake, a considerable deal of research went into its composition. "The piece is episodic, really," explains its creator, "not so much a story as a kind of journey through a night's drinking."

Happy Hour runs at The George on September 26th at 7 p.m.; at the Project on September 27th at 8 p.m.; and at The Front Lounge on September 25th at 7 p.m.

Aedin Cosgrove: (Pan Pan Theatre Co) Designer Standoffish

`It all started with the chunky jumpers," says Aedin Cosgrove. "Two pounds each in a charity shop, and everything came out of that." A sense of originality and an openness to the slightly bizarre informs her design work for Stand- offish, and it is these same qualities which have characterised the theatre company behind the show since it was founded by Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn in 1993. With Pan Pan, all art is a collaboration, and Cosgrove is keen to stress that her set design rose around the play as it evolved, aiming to build a space for the production as a whole. "For me, set design is about creating an environment wherein the actors can perform and the audience can just be . . . design is more than just what you build, it has to reflect what you're saying in the play."

Standoffish is at the City Arts Centre, from October 2nd to 7th at 8.30 p.m.

Liz Roche: (Rex Levitates) Choreographer

Since she set up the dance company Rex Levitates with her sister Jenny last year, time pressures have forced Roche to choose between dancing and choreographing her own pieces; but good things have come of the compromise. Blush takes its inspiration from the radical outbursts in painting at the beginning of the 20th century. Roche has woven a meditation on expression and concealment, on the texture and tenacity of emotion. "The starting point for the piece came from the Fauve painters, like Matisse and Derain; at that time, synthetic colour was being developed too," Roche explains. "People were experimenting with the pure shock of the colour . . . an animalistic explosion of colour, of emotion, but also a purity and an innocence in that."

Blush runs at the Samuel Beckett Theatre from September 27th to September 30th, 8 p.m.

David O'Doherty: (Acme) Comedian The Story of the Boy Who Saved Comedy

The first week in October will be a hectic time for this Dublin comic; as well as performing the show which earned him a nomination for the Perrier Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, O'Doherty will be preparing for the launch of his first children's book, Ronan Long Gets it Wrong. He is quick to point out that this year's show marks a departure from the type of stand-up with which he has made his name; if anything, The Story of the Boy Who Saved Comedy is closer to the writing that he does for the under-10s. "It's a story for grown-ups about a kid, and it reflects the simple structures of a kid's story, but it's trying to get across quite a profound idea," he explains.

The Story of the Boy Who Saved Comedy is at Bewley's Cafe Theatre from October 2nd to October 7th at 8 p.m.

Andrew Bennett:

(Corn Exchange) Actor

Andrew Bennett is proud to be the one man of this one-man show, which explores the cultural and emotional scars left in the wake of Irish Protestantism south of the border. Cast as the last of a family who are the last of a creed, Bennett was astounded by the play's commitment to a subject of which he has a personal understanding. "It's a lament for a whole different form of Irishism," he says. Bennett is excited by tentative plans to stage Foley in a resource centre on Belfast's Falls Road. He stresses, however, that the play has a universal theme: "In many ways, it's about loneliness. You have to feel that you belong somewhere, and if what you feel that you belong to is dying out, then loneliness is the end result."

Foley runs at the Project Cube from Octo- ber 2nd to October 7th at 8 p.m.

Simon Doyle: (Faustroll Productions) Writer The Truth of the Moon

The Fringe certainly gets this writer's creative juices flowing - this year, he has come up with not one, but two pieces. As well as The Truth of the Moon, a dramatic monologue, he has written the libretto for the opera Obegon, to be staged at Player's Theatre in the final week of the festival. Eccentric, obsessive and isolated, the protagonists of the works have much in common, reflecting Doyle's interest in "what happens when the imagination takes over from objective reality". While the character of Obegon takes existentialist angst to absurd extremes, The Truth of the Moon takes its inspiration from a wacky scientific text, discovered in a second-hand bookshop, which argues that the moon is not a planet, but a huge spaceship inhabited by aliens. "I thought this was funny, but it's also quite sad; the only way that these people can relate to the rest of society is to impose their mad visions upon it," says Doyle.

The Truth of the Moon is at The International Bar from September 25th to September 30th at 6.15 p.m.

Michelle Read: (The Read Company) Improvisation Artist Human Stories

This writer and performer is already familiar to fans of the Comedy Improv group, but while she will feature in the first week of the Fringe with this group, Human Stories, which will run in week two, is Read's own baby, and with it she intends to develop new and exhilarating possibilities for both theatre and improvisation. No rehearsals, no agreed characters, no scripts - even an audience which expects the offbeat and experimental will be stunned by the daring nature of the piece. "What we're doing with this show is getting rid of the background devising," says Read. "It's the first time, I think, that this has been done; I think this will be the first purely unstructured piece, with only technique for the actors to follow. I think it will be theatre, but in its rawest form."

Human Stories runs at Bewley's Cafe Theatre from October 2nd to October 7th at 6 p.m.

Paul McEneaney: (Big Telly) Illusionist

An interest in magic, nurtured from childhood, has dominated this actor's creative work, and in recent pieces he has shown how the arts of illusion and drama can be married in startling ways. This summer's production by Big Telly of A Midsummer Night's Dream in London featured a controversial scene, engineered by McEneaney, in which the character of Tanya levitates onstage, and Fish will bring to fruition the theatrical possibilities hinted at by this feat. McEneaney is excited by this prospect: "The days are gone where a magician pulls a rabbit out of a black hat," he says. "But I think the way theatre is at the moment, it needs a helping hand just as much as does magic. And I think the two work very well together."

Fish is at the City Arts Centre from Octo- ber 12th to October 14th at 7 p.m.

Eithne McGuinness: (Queen of Sheba Productions) Writer and Director

A young Nigerian man, Paul, comes to Ireland in search of asylum, only to become entangled in a net of confusion and hostility; what he cannot understand is why things are so much easier for his Kurdish friend Ahmet, who even has the Welfare Officer in love with him. For McGuinness, who is directing for the first time with Limbo, the play addresses a need to document the changing landscape of Ireland. "I think the main thing that started it was something that I saw in town one day. A beautifully-dressed black man came out of a hotel. It was raining heavily and he had a briefcase up over his head. He knocked very politely on a taxi window and the driver just waved him away. And it was just . . . the look on his face, it was the shock . . ."

Limbo runs at the Crypt Arts Centre from September 25th to September 30th at 8 p.m.