John Robert Allman is a marketer and writer living in Brooklyn.

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His first children’s book, A is for Audra: Broadway’s Leading Ladies from A to Z – illustrated by Peter Emmerich and benefitting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – was published by Random House’s Doubleday Books for Young Readers in 2019.

One of NPR’s “Favorite Books of 2019,” A is for Audra has been called “a true necessity for any kid’s bookshelf” (Entertainment Weekly), “the perfect gift for any show queen, from 3 to 103” (NewNowNext), and “a book all kids – and many adults – will enjoy as they learn about and fall in love with the theatre” (Playbill).

An encore, B is for Broadway: Onstage and Backstage from A to Z – illustrated by Emmerich and benefitting The Actors Fund – debuted in February 2022, and has been hailed as “a dynamite willkommen to the world of Broadway” by Joel Grey and “a must-have” by Kristin Chenoweth.

John is also the author of three children’s dance books in collaboration with Random House and American Ballet Theatre: B is for Ballet: A Dance Alphabet (illustrated by Rachael Dean, 2020), Boys Dance! (illustrated by Luciano Lozano, 2020), and The Night Before the Nutcracker (illustrated by Julianna Swaney, 2022).

In B is for Ballet, “those in love with ballet will find much to enjoy” (Kirkus), while Boys Dance! “gives boys who love ballet a chance to feel seen” (HuffPost). “The takeaway from these books? Anyone can dance, and everyone should” (The New York Times).

John’s sixth book (and third collaboration with Peter Emmerich), J is for Judy: Classic Hollywood’s Leading Ladies from A to Z, is “perfect for an adult old-movie buff to share with a younger friend” (Kirkus) and was released in October 2023. Order here (or here for personalized, signed copies)!

Read more on A is for Audra via HuffPost and Broadway.com, on B is for Broadway via NPR, HuffPost, Broadway.com, and Playbill, and on Boys Dance! via Fatherly, HuffPost, and Publishers Weekly.

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A native Texan, John earned his BA from Northwestern’s School of Communication and his MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

He works in marketing at HBO/Max, previously worked at Bravo and on over fifteen Broadway shows, from Kinky Boots to Mean Girls, and is a lyricist in BMI’s Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

John is represented by O’Connor Literary Agency.
Press: Lili Feinberg • Photo: Ella Pennington