Jenny Montgomery is a stage director who focuses on plays that explore themes of social justice and transcultural connection. She has lived in Québec since 2009, when she moved to Montréal for a Fulbright grant to create a bilingual play from interviews with refugees, Québécois and people in between cultures. Déraciné/Uprooted examines themes of cultural belonging, identity and concepts of “home.” In March 2012, it had a public reading at the Balustrade Theatre of the Monument-National in Montréal.

Before living in Québec, Jenny spent seven years directing and assistant directing in Chicago. She also wrote three plays: When All Other Lights Go Out, created from interviews conducted with twenty Chicagoland survivors of seven different genocides; Stain, an adaptation of Euripides’ The Children of Herakles interwoven with text from interviews with refugees from Darfur; and Raining Season, created from interviews with five survivors of three genocides. Her assistant directing credits include the world premieres of Arthur Miller’s Finishing the Picture, directed by Robert Falls (Goodman) and Joanna McClelland Glass’ Trying, directed by Sandy Shinner (Victory Gardens). In 2008, Jenny was the SDCF Observer for Tina Landau and assistant to Tracy Letts on the world premiere of Tracy Lett’s Superior Donuts (Steppenwolf). She was a directing observer on Robert Lepage’s Lipsynch in 2007 in Québec City.

She has directed for North Park University, Northlight Theatre’s Open Door Ensemble, Around the Coyote Theatre Festival, Victory Garden Theater’s Access Project Playwriting Class and The WordPlayers. Jenny has led youth theatre workshops in various places in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and Norway. As an invited artist, she has led theatre workshops at Université Laval and Cégep St. Lawrence in Québec City. In Montreal, she was a part of a team that received a Fulbright Community Leadership Program grant, for which she planned and led theatre workshops on leadership and human rights with the youth of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Community Centre. Her article, "Living in the In-Between' was published in alt.theatre: cultural diversity and the stage. In 2013 she did the English translation of Robert Lepage's Needles and Opium.

Jenny graduated summa cum laude from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and French, plus a minor in Theatre. She is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Dramatists Guild. As a recipient of a CAAP Grant, Jenny trained with SITI Company at Skidmore College in 2006; she also trained with SITI in Chicago in 2007 and 2008. She is an alumna of the 2005 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York, and serves on the Steering Committee of DirectorsLabChicago. Her work with DirectorsLabChicago focuses primarily on expanding the Lab internationally by working with consulates and various international arts organizations. As an artist fueled by the belief that theatre can be a powerful catalyst for change, she seeks to develop community through both local and international theatre collaborations.