I'm Amanda Testini - I use she/her pronouns, I'm based on the unceded territories of the  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh),  or so-called Vancouver, and I'm a director, choreographer and performer, working in theatre, dance and opera across Canada and the US. 

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Some of my most recent projects include: Rumpelstiltskin and the Unloveable Children (choreographer) and Elizabeth Cree (assistant director) at The Glimmerglass Festival, a workshop of A Handmaid's Tale (director/Banff Centre for the Arts), The Hafu Project (director/City Opera Vancouver), Where Have All the Buffalo Gone? (director/Axis Theatre).  My next projects are Agrimony (dancer/The Dance Centre), clemenza di Tito (assistant director and movement director/Pacific Opera Victoria), and returning for my 7th East Van Panto - Robin Hood (choreographer/Theatre Replacement and the Cultch).  

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Other projects I've worked on that are important to me include: 6 seasons performing or assisting at Theatre Under the Stars, assistant choreographing Onegin (Arts Club/Belfry), performing and choreographing in a variety of Theatre for Young Audience shows at Carousel Theatre for Young People, 2 tours with You Used to Call Me Marie (movement consultant and swing/Savage Society), 6 tours of BC and Canada with Love Bomb (shameless hussy productions) playing lead character 'Justine Chambers' performing everywhere from theatres to gymnasiums to the RCMP cadet depot in Regina and the RCMP headquarters in Ottawa as the show was deemed a best practice of crime prevention against human trafficking. 

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I've completed tenures with the Banff Centre of the Arts’ Opera in the 21st program as their Stage Directing participant (2022), then returned this year as faculty, two seasons as the Young Artist Stage Director at Vancouver Opera (19/20 and 21/22), and have returned for my second season as a Young Artist Stage Director at the Glimmerglass Festival in New York (2023 and 2024). 

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I received the Brian McMaster Award for Education from the Vancouver Opera Guild in 2021, the Lloyd Nicholson Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in Musical Theatre at Studio 58 in 15/16, the Rising Star Internship Award from Theatre Under the Stars in 2016, and in 2015, received the Leon and Thea Koerner Award in the Fine and Performing Arts.

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I am a 2 time Jessie Richardson Award nominee for Best Performance, and a graduate of Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts’ Triple Threat Program in Toronto, ON and Studio 58’s Acting Program at Langara College in Vancouver, BC.

 

When I'm not making art, I'm biking around Vancouver, swimming in the ocean, hiking when I can, and eating good food with good company.  

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Click here for my artistic statement.