Amanda works on performance that is physical, heart-driven, that examines liveness and engages communities. She is an ensemblist, a Shakespeare specialist, a community arts leader, a mentor, and a guide for new and devised work. As a director, she is known for dynamic, multi-sensory, physical performances.
Amanda is a Drama League Fellow, a proud member of SDC, an LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award winner, a member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and a Fulbright Award recipient to New Zealand, where she worked with communities of all kinds to tell their stories. The films she made with young refugees are in a permanent exhibit at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand.
In addition to her freelance work in Los Angeles, Amanda ran two theater ensembles, taught performance studies at California State University, Northridge, and created theater with students at both Chino and Lancaster State Prisons, a love that was first fostered while working with women at Fluvanna Correctional Center in her home state of Virginia. A fierce proponent of feminist social justice performance, she is the founder and producer of Los Angeles “Lady” Arm Wrestlers: (real) arm-wrestling tournaments (think burlesque, drag, and WWE had a baby) that create celebratory spaces for queer communities and their allies and raise funds for local non-profits. She hopes to start a league in Portland.
She is excited to return to Oregon, where she spent one of the best summers of her life working at OSF and crawling around waterfalls looking for fairies. She fully plans to pick those quests back up, now accompanied by her wife and best adventure buddy, Sarah. When she is not doing all the things in this bio, Amanda is exploring flea markets, camping, soaking up sunshine, crafting, collecting interesting objects, being a plant mom, and just generally enjoying her one wild and precious life.
