Amanda Dehnert

Amanda Dehnert is an American regional theater director and professor at Northwestern University.

Dehnert grew up in Illinois and graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University 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's conservatory program in Providence, Rhode Island 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, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Skin of Our Teeth, Peter Pan, Noises Off, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, My Fair Lady, Othello and Saint Joan. Iris Fanger wrote that "Audiences have applauded [Dehnert's] ingenuity 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 of the company.

In 2003, working for Trinity Rep, Dehnert directed a reimagined production of Annie "that emphasized the poverty of the Great Depression 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, who wrote the lyrics for Annie, attended a performance and was critical of the production. He told The New York Post that the production was "not true to the spirit of the show" and that "It was a very WPA, Group Theater, Clifford Odets-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, 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.

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