Janni Younge is a director and producer of theatre with an emphasis on puppetry. Younge’s work has been performed widely internationally in North and South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and India. 

Recognition for her work includes the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Theatre, four-time winner of the Fleur du Cap award for puppet design and best director at the I Festiwal małych Prapremier in Poland. In 2018, she was selected as the Grenada Artist-in-Residence at the University of California, Davis, where she designed and co-directed The Bluest Eye. The show went on to win four awards at the American College Theatre Festival.

A past director of Handspring Puppet Company, she currently runs Janni Younge Productions. She also directs UNIMA South Africa, a UNESCO-affiliated organization that works for the development and training of visual performance artists and focuses on social development through visual performance mediums.

Younge’s works include Hamlet and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival); puppet design and direction for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Tempest; Ouroboros (South Africa, France and India); The Firebird (U.S. venues including Ravinia and the Hollywood Bowl); and Take Flight, winner of the best director award at the I Festiwal małych Prapremier in Poland.

With Handspring, Younge also directed revivals of William Kentridge’s Woyzeck on the Highveld and Ubu and the Truth Commission, and she worked on War Horse and on the Bristol Old Vic’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Younge is a graduate of the French National School of Puppet Theatre and has a B.A. in Fine Art and an M.A. in Theatre. janniyounge.com