Summer sun notwithstanding, four ski-clad actors from the Pan Pan Theatre Company swooped into Merrion Square yesterday to launch the full programme for the 2007 Dublin Theatre Festival.

This year marks the festival's 50th anniversary, and a packed programme of theatre and music reflects this special occasion.

With 221 performances in 33 shows from 13 different countries in store, the festival's artistic director and chief executive Loughlin Deegan said the birthday festivities will be celebrating the past, but with an eye on what's to come.

"We are very much about acknowledging the history of the festival, but we're also laying down markers for how we think it should develop in the future," he said.

With this in mind, a number of new themes are running through this year's festival to mark it out as an international event. On the Outside is a programme of performances in outdoor locations around the city, with the On the Caseto be staged at George's Dock in the IFSC, and the Argentinian production La Mareato take place in the city's Italian quarter.

There will also be an emphasis on ensemble theatre companies; two of which have been invited to take up residence in the city during the festival.

"We are inviting these companies to come to the city and have a deeper engagement with the local audience and actors," explained Deegan. This will involve special workshops, seminars and interviews as well as extra performances from the companies involved.

The festival also boasts an expanded musical programme, with highlights including Laurie Anderson's Homeland, and performances from award-winning Sardinian musician Paolo Fresu and Japanese sound artist Ryoji Ikeda.

Festival chairman Peter Crowley said the 2007 Dublin Theatre Festival is a chance to realise a number of long-held ambitions for this annual event.

"The quality has always been superb but what we've lacked is the money to put the celebration into it and take it out into the city. It seems this year we've finally cracked it," he said.

The board is hoping to put the theatre festival on the international map with its 50th anniversary programme, which includes Michael Keegan Dolan's long-awaited James, Son of James, the third in his acclaimed midlands trilogy, and Druid Theatre Company's production of Long Day's Journey into Night.

"It's the start of a new beginning for the festival as a destination festival that people will talk about and travel to," said Crowley, who added that the burst of funding received for the 2007 festival was "like all the 46As coming at once!

"We've got support from a number of different sources, and we have to use that to build for the future."

The festival will also set Dublin pulses racing with its late-night season of avant-garde burlesque, drag and cabaret from New York's alternative village scene, which will include performances from Miss Exotic World 2006 Julie Atlas Muz. For Deegan, it's a way of continuing another element of the 50-year-old festival's tradition. "The festival was quite controversial in its early years," he said.

Will this year be following in the same vein? "We can only hope," said Deegan.

The festival runs from September 27th to October 14th.