IWU Alum Amanda Dehnert Named One of the "Best of 2011"

I did a "Where Are They Now?" post earlier this year, to bring us all up to date on what's been happening with some of the area actors and performers I'd seen around here during their college years.

Director Amanda Dehnert is someone who graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University just before I came to Bloomington-Normal, meaning I did not see her work when she was here. But she is on the roster of IWU's "proud alums" and yesterday I noticed her name pop up in Terry Teachout's "Best of 2011" piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Teachout is a national critic, meaning he has productions from coast to coast to choose from. And he chose Dehnert's production of "Julius Caesar" as the best Shakespeare production of the year, saying, "The Oregon Shakespeare Festival hit the target with Amanda Dehnert's modern-dress Julius Caesar, whose you-are-there immediacy put me in mind of Orson Welles's legendary 1937 Mercury Theater production."

High praise indeed!

You can see a review of her "Julius Caesar" here and an article about Dehnert when she was at Trinity Rep here. And here is a video interview with Dehnert when she directed "Cabaret" at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2008.

Congratulations to Amanda Dehnert, another IWU alum made good!