Directing disadvantaged young adults as they wrote and performed in their own plays was the challenge faced by a young theatre director. David Betz-Heinemann, 26, worked with charity Kids Company to put on four new plays in eight weeks at the National Theatre Studio.

Kids Company gave the young adults, aged between 16 and 23, the opportunity to work with a writer and a director to showcase short plays drawn from their own experiences growing up in some of London's toughest areas. The plays were performed by a mixture of professional actors and young people from Kids Company.

Mr Betz-Heinemann, who is currently a student on Birkbeck University's prestigious Theatre Directing MFA, said: "I treated everyone as a professional. You should never talk down to these kids, they have to step up to the challenge."

He added: "I think theatre has many purposes, two of those are to give a voice to marginal groups and to hold up a mirror to the society that we live in. I didn't do this as a charity project, I did it because I believe that these young people have something vital to say, something honest and authentic."

The plays included one about a classical pianist and another about a girls' drinking game. Mr Betz-Heinemann has also worked at Nottingham Playhouse and as part of Old Vic New Voices. This summer, he will be seconded to the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.