Celebrating brilliance, originality and spirit in the early works of some of the world’s great playwrights and theatre artists.

There’s ability, there’s talent and there’s genius.

Everyone is born with creative abilities of various kinds. Talent, it seems to us, is the result of a relationship: between an individual and a particular parent or teacher or even an audience. What is genius? Can it be measured? Some even deny it exists. And yet there’s a quality some artists possess that Keats expressed perfectly:

If it does not come as naturally as the leaves to a tree
It had better not come at all.

How is it that some people can ‘do it’ almost - or so it seems - without thinking and almost as soon as they begin? Young Genius is a celebration of that extraordinary phenomenon: artists who know at once who they are, who find their voice the moment they start to speak.

The shows in Young Genius began in Québec, in Reykjavik , in Colchester , Dundee , Glasgow , Bristol , Oxford and Brighton - and in the minds of their creators. Geniuses all? You decide. What we’re sure of is that these 15 full and workshop productions celebrate - across the ages - youthful ambition, provocation, experimentation, confidence and the joy of creativity.

Behind Young Genius is a team of brilliant young directors, choreographers, designers and producers. Join us. Be inspired.

Louise Jeffreys, Head of Theatre, Barbican
David Lan, Artistic Director, Young Vic