NBC FOLLIES (1973)
NBC FOLLIES (1973)
HAIR
HAIR – Orginal Broadway Cast.
Susan Batson, Alma Robinson, and Jonelle Allen recording “White Boys” [Orginal Broadway Cast]
Allen returned to Broadway for a 1955 revival of Finian’s Rainbow. She was in the cast of the original off-Broadway production of Hair at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre and also appeared in George M!
Helen Hayes
Jonelle was four years old, when she was cast in the revival Wisteria Trees (1956) starring Helen Hayes, Ossie Davis, Cliff Robertson at the City Center Theatre in New York. In the course of the play’s run, Ms. Hayes took Ms. Allen’s Aunt Bea aside and advised her, “Keep this child in the theatre, she has a natural gift.”
It wasn’t until some twenty years later at Sardi’s that Jonelle again saw Helen Hayes in person. Ms. Allen was in the spotlight at the famed theatrical hangout awaiting the first reviews following her opening night of the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which she starred and Ms. Hayes had attended the performance. Rushing up to a great actress and assuming that she would not recognize her, Ms. Allen recounted the circumstances and what Ms. Hayes had said to her Aunt Bea years earlier. Ms. Hayes smiling simply said, “See…I was right.”
Charles Nelson Reilly, Jonelle Allen, Monty Hall, and Florence Henderson, Monty Hall at Sea World (1974)
” Lola Falana flanked by Jonelle Allen and Paula Kelly in 1984.”
The late Brock Peters got us together
Lola played Ethel Waters when she (Waters) was known as “ Mama Stringbean”
Paula played Josephine Baker
And I played Florence Mills
Honi Coles, The Nicholas Brothers, were also in the show, along with other Tap Dance Legends
It was a stage show that Mr. Peters, Produced and Directed, in LA for the 1984 Summer Olympics.
