Brainstorm
Brainstorm
The original playscript and a blueprint for creating your own production
Ned Glasier
Inside every adolescent brain, 86 billion neurons connect and collide to produce the most frustrating, chaotic and exhilarating changes that will ever happen to us.
Brainstorm is a unique theatrical investigation into how teenagers’ brains work, and why they’re designed by evolution to be the way they are.
Created by Ned Glasier and Emily Lim with Company Three (formerly Islington Community Theatre), in collaboration with neuroscientists Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Dr Kate Mills, the play is designed to be created and performed by a company of teenagers, drawing directly on their personal experiences.
This edition contains a series of exercises, resources and activities to help schools, youth-theatre groups and young companies create and perform their own Brainstorm. It also features the complete script of the original production which played at Park Theatre and the National Theatre, London, in 2015.
Blog Post 1: Ned Glasier on the process that led to Brainstorm: ‘We know from the parents, teachers and other adults who came to see the show how important it is that adults understand what’s going on in the changing teenage brain. And how empowering it can be for teenagers to be the ones to tell them.’
Available
2016
English
978-1-84842-587-3
Drama
Nick Hern Books
Ned Glasier is one of the UK’s leading theatre practitioners dedicated to working with young people.
He founded Company Three, a London-based theatre company working with young people, and was the company’s Artistic Director until 2024. At Company Three he created more than forty plays with young people, including Brainstorm at the Park Theatre, National Theatre and BBC iPlayer, Boat at Battersea Arts Centre and two major international projects during the COVID pandemic: The Coronavirus Time Capsule and When This Is Over.
Alongside his work making plays with young people, Ned leads training in the practice of co-creation, teaches on university courses, and works as a consultant supporting organisations to listen to, support and enable young people.