Although many dream of a life in the spotlights, few manage to turn this fantasy into a practical reality. Every second Dublin restaurant has at least one aspiring actor serving its customers, but this bleak prospect isn't enough to deter the annual applicants to our theatre courses and schools. And, considering how much of our international reputation is based on our culture, we should all be extremely grateful for that.

"It's certainly as hard as ever, if not harder, but that isn't enough to put people off," reports Roise Goan, one of the co-founders of the relatively youthful Randolf SD Theatre Company, which is presenting the Irish premiere of Fewer Emergencies at the Project Arts Centre from Monday (www.project.ie).

"If you want it enough, you will always find a way to make it work, to meet the bills. Wayne Jordan, my Randolf SD co-founder and director/designer of the new production, is doing a residency at the Abbey, and I do a lot of freelance work.

"I'm currently writing for a programme for TG4, writing and directing my own show for the Ark [children's cultural centre] and I'm doing some producing work. The dole culture doesn't exist to the same extent for actors, but you will still find many serving you dinner.

"There's never enough money, never enough resources, never enough time. We've just had our first production funded by the Arts Council and, although this doesn't guarantee anything for our next one, we now know a little more about how the system works."

As Goan will be the first to tell you, the struggle to produce quality theatre on a shoestring will always be an uphill one. "But things do gradually do get better. I think it will always be a constant challenge to make work the way you want to. Having a career based around the creative process was never going to be easy."

Difficulties for fledgling companies are far more prosaic than finding new ideas. The first headache is finding a venue, but Goan believes there are theatres out there doing what they can to encourage new work.

"The only way we were able to make our three previous productions was thanks to the assistance of Project Arts Centre, which supported us in kind. They have waived our rental -- and continue to do so, which is the only reason this show can happen, even with the Arts Council help. Without them we would have probably crumbled."

Having learned her craft on the hoof, so to speak, Goan has endless insightful hints for aspiring theatre-makers. "If you have no money, you've obviously got to be that little more creative. If you can't afford them, you can forget about offices, fancy graphic-designed invitations and fax machines. If you can't afford a website, MySpace is free and so are webtexts. Wireless internet access is free in lots of cafes and pubs now, so use it. All you really need to produce a show is a mobile phone and the secret is not to pay for things you don't need to. When you break it down, the only things you really have to pay for are rights to the play and insurance." Goan believes young theatre companies don't use our annual Fringe Festival in the right way.

"Randolf SD's first show was part of the Fringe Festival in 2003 and it really was the best platform we could have ever hoped for. This is your opportunity to experiment, to take risks, push boundaries and provoke -- which is, after all, what the Fringe advocates.

"Now is your opportunity to make that deconstructivist two-handed version of John B Keane's The Matchmaker in a warehouse, in a field, in a sewer -- wherever. This year, the Fringe is actively encouraging young Irish companies to make work and have reduced the participation fee to make this feasible."

She also recognises that it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract younger Irish audiences to the theatre.

"We're young people making theatre and it's vital that we confront the continuing difficulties in drawing young people to the theatre.

"It's important for emergent companies to re-examine how we are marketing theatre. Placing ads in theatre guides is expensive and obviously not working.

"The reality is that theatre isn't cool for 20- to 30-year-olds and our job is to try to connect, in many instances for the first time, with people who have disposable incomes and are looking for something different and interesting to see. Viral marketing on MySpace, Bebo and Facebook is something we can and need to work at, as well as the visual identity we brand our work with."

With the likes of Goan and her company Randolf SD, and contemporaries such as Making Strange and Thispopbaby theatre companies, it would certainly seem the next generation of Irish theatre-makers is ready to give the theatrical establishment a long overdue shake-up.