`General creative impulses and ideologies in Irish theatre" - now there's a theme broad enough to cover just about anything. Fiach Mac Conghaill, director of Project Arts Centre, will be trying to pin it down this afternoon, as he chairs an informal panel discussion at the 3rd International Theatre Symposium (Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, 4 p.m.) Joining him to thrash out issues relating to "Theatre and reality, theatre as an expression of the individual" are Druid's Garry Hynes, playwright Alex Johnston and Johnny Hanrahan, Artistic Director of Meridian Theatre, Cork. It can hardly fail to be lively and will probably go on all night.
The Symposium, with workshops, talks and performances from visiting companies, continues until Saturday. Tomorrow night there's another chance to see Coisceim's award-winning dance show, Straight With Curves at 8.30 p.m. Further information from: 01-280 0544.
More discussion of theatre is planned for Saturday (January 16th) at The Peacock where a bi-lingual conference on contemporary theatre in Irish takes place, covering the potential of bilingual work and Irish language community theatre. From 10 a.m., admission free. Further information from: 01-8748741. Creative impulses are also required for the position of director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which has just become vacant. Hilary Strong is leaving after five years to concentrate on writing. Interested candidates need to have "boundless energy" according to the advertisement in The Guardian. The open-access policy of the Fringe makes this a unique job - running "the world's largest arts festival" without actually programming anything - but, as usual in the arts sector, the salary of £2530,000, hardly reflects its significance.
