For starstruck hopefuls, this may come as a shock. The most a performer can hope to earn from the Irish theatre is €792 a week, but that is only from the Abbey, and only if they have worked their way up to the theatre's top pay rate.

Still, €792 isn't bad if you're a primary school teacher, an administrative civil servant, working the deep-fat fryer in KFC or, God help you, if you're a freelance arts journalist. Actors, however, may only be employed for eight weeks on a particular production and may only work on four productions in a good year.

Employment opportunities are further complicated by the current conditions of theatre-making. Actors represent the most significant constituency of the freelance theatre sector, yet, owing to budgetary constraints, it is a rare contemporary play that features more than three characters.

More disconcertingly, there are fewer roles for women than men in drama - accentuated by a recent vogue for all-male productions - and after the age of 40 there is a sharp fall-off in the number of female practitioners.

"It's a very difficult age," says one source in the industry. "They're too old to play the leads and still too young to play mothers. In my experience, actresses often find other outlets for their creativity, sometimes in writing or directing. There's also an element of taking responsibility for your life; whether you want to keep living with this absence of control. Some are resolved to it and others are not."

Nor is there much more security in television. "When people are on a series like Pure Mule or Love is the Drug," says the source, "they might only work for 11 days and be paid €500 a day. People imagine that they're making 20 or 30 grand from that. The irony is, if you're really closely associated with a particular show, it will actually go against you getting other parts."

The minimum weekly wage for actors, advised by Irish Equity, is €381. According to industry sources, Abbey wages start at the Equity minimum for new performers but can rise to €792 for seasoned hands. The top rate reported for the Gate Theatre is €700, while established independent theatre companies such as Rough Magic or Druid tend to oscillate between €550 and €650.

The Arts Council report calculates a performing artist's average weekly wage at €456, while playwrights, directors and designers average €546, leaving technicians and producers to mop up with an average of €713.