Dublin theatre Festival is back. Enjoy 18 wonderful days of world-class Irish and international theatre this autumn right across Ireland's capital city.

Even before we enter the theatre, our imagination is at work, anticipating what is to come. We are already doing so reading this text.

Presented in Virtual Reality, this exhibition of Irish stage design is curated by Jo Mangan, Artistic Director of Carlow Arts Festival and The Performance Corporation. We meet designers and their work within a Virtual Reality world – in their studios, on stage, in 360 visualisations, and during the inevitable destruction of their creations

Rat King observes the darkly comic lives of David and Chrissy, a pigeonhearted duo clambering to make sense of the world in which they exist.

Part ode to the lighthouse keeper, part personal history and part enquiry into evolving technology, Transmission is an inventive and playful meditation on what our futures might hold and how our histories might be recorded.

Raquel André is a collector of rare things. Across 20 cities around the world she has collected more than 200 ‘lovers’ to date. People of all nationalities, genders and ages, have agreed to meet her in an unfamiliar apartment, to build a fictional intimacy within the span of an hour. In each city she encounters more lovers and the collection grows.

Can we listen to each other? Can you hold our hands together? A thin girl and a less thin girl are sad and would like to disappear. A new collaboration between Doireann Coady and Jane Deasy.

Strangers meet through dating apps, websites or random hook ups at the supermarket. They couple in cars, hotel rooms and anonymous apartments. They f*ck furiously, fulfilling perceived physical desires and needs in one another - the need to forget themselves, feel, control or submit. Their shared physical intimacy becomes a catalyst for shocking communication.

A free seminar on Creative Europe funding for the arts and culture sectors, open to arts organisations who wish to learn about European support for culture projects. Seminar will be followed by a networking reception.

Bringing together critics with a wealth of experience and a breadth reference of different theatre cultures, this forum considers performance from several angles and welcomes audience reflection and feedback. If there’s nothing more deadly than consensus, here is an opportunity for spirited debate...