Janet Brenner

JANET BRENNER, founder of Apple Lane Productions, is an award-winning film and theatre producer and educator. Janet is the producer of the film, ITHACA, directed by Meg Ryan, written by Erik Jendresen and starring Meg Ryan, Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater, and Jack Quaid.  ITHACA is based on the novel, The Human Comedy by Pulitzer-prize winner William Saroyan. Her film, THE LAST FIVE YEARS, adapted for the screen and directed by Richard LaGravenese, (BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, P.S. I LOVE YOU, THE FISHER KING, BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY), is based on the Off-Broadway musical by three-time Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist, Jason Robert Brown, and stars Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. With Daryl Roth, Janet produced the original Off-Broadway production of Maltby and Shire’s CLOSER THAN EVER, for which she won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Production, MAC Award, among others.   She conceived and wrote the script for THE 60s PROJECT, a new musical that received productions at numerous theatres including CAP21, Trinity Rep, and Goodspeed.   For three years, Janet served as Assistant and Acting Director of the Opera-Musical Theater Program at the National Endowment for the Arts. She was a member of the Mentor Program for the Writer’s Guild of America, East and served as President of Young Playwrights, Inc, founded by Stephen Sondheim. She has taught on the faculty at several colleges and universities including CAP21, NYU, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Pace University.  Janet trained as an opera singer and received a Bachelor of Music in Voice from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Masters degree in Arts Administration from New York University.