Allee started acting at an early age. In 1980, while still in high school, he appeared in Los Angeles in the West Coast premiere of Elizabeth Swados' Runaways.. The following year he created the role of Douglas Spaulding in Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury's own musical adaptation of his novel, and appeared in a featured "bit" alongside comedy legend Sid Caesar in the movie Grease 2. Soon after, he was cast as Teen Charlie Chaplin in Anthony Newley's pre-Broadway musical Chaplin, in which Newley played the silent film icon as an older man. Chaplin was directed by choreographer Michael Smuin and closed after its out of town try-out at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, having lost $4 million on the road. Allee's work in the theatre also includes playing Thomas Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons, Banjo in The Man Who Came to Dinner, 33 Variations , Cloud 9 , Uncle Vanya starring Arye Gross, The Crucible, Peace in Our Time , The Malcontent, the U.S. premiere of Miro Gavran's My Wife's Husband, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, Lee Harvey Oswald in the West Coast premiere of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins opposite Patrick Cassidy as John Wilkes Booth, Alone Together starring Nancy Dussault, Puck in Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream directed two times by Gordon Davidson, and two other productions of the same directed by John Copley, conducted by John Mauceri, with Sylvia McNair as Tytania, Brian Asawa as Oberon, and Donald Adams as Bottom, and One Thousand Cranes. Allee appeared on television in the recurring role of Pasha on the Golden Globe Awards nominated Starz limited series Flesh and Bone from Breaking Bad writer and executive producer Moira Walley-Beckett.
Music
Allee is also a songwriter, recording artist, and composer of musical plays, including an adaptation of Kin Platt's The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear and Poet's Garden, the latter of which premiered in Los Angeles at The Matrix Theatre in 2001 under the direction of Michael Michetti. Allee has performed in cabarets, clubs, and theatres and has had his music featured Off-Broadway, in regional theatre, and on national TV, including Candid Camera. Recording under the "nom-de-pop," Johnnye Allee, he released his first CD in 2007, Unless it Isn't, a collection of folk-pop/roots-rock originals which American Songwriter magazine called "a stunning suite of songs." He released a follow up album, Expect Delays, in 2016.
Awards
Allee has received a variety of awards throughout his career for both acting and music, including the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Ensemble for Cloud 9, an Ovation Award nomination for Best Acting Ensemble for 33 Variations, Robby Award nominations for Best Actor in a Musical, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy, the ASCAP/Sammy Cahn Award for excellence in lyric writing, a Back Stage Garland Award for Musical Score for Poet's Garden, and he was a finalist for the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre for The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear.
