Liv Ullman conducts a Masterclass

Glee meets MENSA? The New York Times alerts us to a new 9-part documentary series on HBO, each week featuring a few outstanding students attend a Masterclass mentored by major personalities nine different disciplines.

But watching the awestruck students, who in this series get to work directly with some of the towering figures in the arts, is only half the fun. The other half is seeing these luminaries — Plácido Domingo, Edward Albee, Liv Ullmann and six others — light up at the opportunity to help shape careers at so early a stage.

The students, already scary-talented for their age, are participants in YoungArts, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which is dedicated to supporting emerging artists.

Tonight’s installment (5 p.m. ET) has Liv Ullman guiding five young actors as they research and produce a scene from “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Subsequent episodes in coming weeks won’t have as much movie relevance but promise to be no less theatrical. Placido Domingo, Edward Albee, Julian Schnabel, Bill T. Jones, Frank Gehry, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Jaques d’Amboise round out the rest of the faculty. The Times ends on a buoyantly hopeful note:

The program is must viewing for all those high school students with dreams of stardom of one sort or another, and for their teachers. And what a historical treasure it will be if any of the students shown go on to become the next Domingo or Jones or Albee or Ullmann, capturing the moment when the torch was passed.

Full series trailer after the cut.