Amanda Dehnert is an American
regional theater A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term ''regional theater'' most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. A reg ...
director and professor at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
.
Career
Dehnert grew up in Illinois and graduated from
Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockford ...
with a degree in musical theater.
[ She received training as a concert pianist as child and also learned to play the French horn, flute, trumpet and harpsichord, but in college she discovered musical theater. In 1994, at the age of 21, Dehnert entered ]Trinity Repertory Company
Trinity Repertory Company (commonly abbreviated as Trinity Rep) is a non-profit regional theater located at 201 Washington Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The theater is a member of the League of Resident Theatres. Founded in 1963, the thea ...
's conservatory program in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
as a student. She performed there as a musician before becoming a musical director, and later was put in charge of a production.[
Some of the shows she staged for Trinity Rep were '']West Side Story
''West Side Story'' is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play ''Romeo and Juliet'', the story is set in the mid-1 ...
'', ''A Moon for the Misbegotten
''A Moon for the Misbegotten'' is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. The play is a sequel to O'Neill's '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', with the Jim Tyrone character as an older version of Jamie Tyrone. He began drafting the play late in ...
'', ''The Skin of Our Teeth
''The Skin of Our Teeth'' is a play by Thornton Wilder that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, ...
'', ''Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a fictional character created by List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and Puer aeternus, never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending ...
'', ''Noises Off
''Noises Off'' is a 1982 play by the English playwright Michael Frayn. Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance of '' The Two of Us'', a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave. He said, "It was funnier ...
'', ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive ...
'', ''My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons f ...
'', ''Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'' and '' Saint Joan''.[ Iris Fanger wrote that "Audiences have applauded ehnert'singenuity in setting George Bernard Shaw's "St. Joan" in a neighborhood garage and the entire ''West Side Story'' in the high school gym, mixing up the Jets and the Sharks to emphasize their commonalities."][ In 1999, Dehnert became associate ]artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
of the company.[
In 2003, working for Trinity Rep, Dehnert directed a reimagined production of '']Annie
Annie may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Annie (actress) (born 1975), Indian actress
* Annie (singer) (born 1977), Norwegian singer
The ...
'' "that emphasized the poverty of the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and the callousness of the Hoover administration." Early in its run, the production included a reworked ending in which Annie wakes to find that the positive events that happened to her throughout the show, including being adopted by billionaire Oliver Warbucks, were all part of a dream. Martin Charnin
Martin Charnin (November 24, 1934 – July 6, 2019) was an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director, and lyricist of the musical ''Annie.''
Life and career
Charnin was born in New York C ...
, who wrote the lyrics for ''Annie'', attended a performance and was critical of the production. He told ''The New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'' that the production was "not true to the spirit of the show" and that "It was a very WPA
WPA may refer to:
Computing
*Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard
*Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing
* Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada
* Windows Performance An ...
, Group Theater, Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdra ...
-y kind of thing."[ He later met with Trinity Rep executives, who agreed to rework the production, including removing the reworked ending.][ However, ]Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse (born June 7, 1928) is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as ''Bye Bye Birdie (musical), Bye Bye Birdie'', ''Applause (musical), Applause'', and ''Annie (musical), Annie''. ...
, who wrote the music for ''Annie'', also saw the production and was impressed, which prompted him to approach Dehnert to produce his new musical, ''You Never Know''. The play had its world premiere at Trinity Rep in April 2005.
In 2005, Dehnert became acting artistic director after Oskar Eustis
Oskar Eustis (born July 31, 1958) has been the Artistic Director at the Public Theater in New York City since 2005. He has worked as a director, dramaturg, and artistic director for theaters around the United States.[The Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...]
in New York City.[
]
Recognition
In 2001, Denhert won the Elliot Norton Award
The Elliot Norton Awards are presented annually to honor the best achievements in Boston-area theater. The genesis of the awards was the Norton Medal, which was first awarded in 1983 and was named after long-time theater critic Elliot Norton (1903 ...
for Outstanding Director, Large Company for her 2000 productions of ''My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons f ...
'' and ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' is a play by Edward Albee first staged in October 1962. It examines the complexities of the marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening, after a university faculty party, they receive ...
'' at Trinity Rep.
Terry Teachout
Terrance Alan Teachout (February 6, 1956 – January 13, 2022) was an American author, critic, biographer, playwright, stage director, and librettist.
He was the drama critic of ''The Wall Street Journal'', the critic-at-large of '' Commentary ...
, drama critic for ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', has praised several of Dehnert's productions. He called Dehnert's 2011 production of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
'' for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...
"the best ''Julius Caesar'' I've ever seen, a stark parable of good intentions run amok that has the attention-grabbing power of a hand grenade lobbed into a crowded room." Teachout later named the production the best Shakespeare production of 2011. Teachout praised Dehnert's 2013 Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of ''My Fair Lady'', which was a minimalist reimagining of the musical in the style of Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
. Teachout was initially skeptical of the reimagining but wrote that Dehnert had "successfully wrought a radical transformation on the familiar parable". Teachout also lauded Dehnert's direction of Kate Hamill's adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2017 saying, "Such a show demands worthy staging, and Amanda Dehnert ... delivers the goods with gusto."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dehnert, Amanda
Living people
American theatre directors
Women theatre directors
Year of birth missing (living people)
Northwestern University faculty