Knechtges is from Grafton, Ohio and is a graduate of Midview High School and Otterbein College (1994), with a degree in musical theatre.
[5] Immediately after college, he moved to New York where he began to work as a dancer and teacher, and soon he was getting choreography jobs,[3] including eight of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for the Blue Hill Troupe.
"[7] His off-Broadway work includes Nerds (2005); The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005), for which he received the Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Outstanding Choreographer; Vanities: A New Musical (2009) (also at Theatreworks, California); and Citizen Ruth (New York International Fringe Festival, 2009).
[8] In regional theatre, he choreographed The Girl in the Frame at the Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, Connecticut (2005)[9] and both directed and choreographed Give It Up!, with a book by Douglas Carter Beane at the Dallas Theater Center, Dallas, Texas (2010).
[2] In 2008, in Berlin, Germany, he choreographed a stage version of Der Schuh des Manitu.