Debbie Allen once found herself judging the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City alongside a charismatic property developer named Donald Trump. He had just bought an 86-metre superyacht named Nabila and rebranded it the Trump Princess. Eager to flaunt his prize, he invited Allen, a dancer, choreographer, actor and director, and her sister, the actor Phylicia Rashad, aboard for a private tour.<\/p>\n
The opulence of the vessel was astonishing, Allen recalls: there was a bathroom carved from lapis lazuli, a fully equipped nightclub and fine paintings hanging on the walls. \u201cIt\u00a0was incredible. I remember him telling me: \u2018Debbie, you can have a party on this.\u2019 I said: \u2018If I do it, honey, it\u2019s going to be all Black people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Four decades later, the Trump that Allen once knew as a \u201cshowman\u201d is now the architect of a deeply polarised US. She struggles to reconcile the affable pageant judge of her past with the authoritarian figure of the present. \u201cHe was a fun guy back then,\u201d she muses. \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did she ever think of him as racist or sexist? \u201cNo!\u201d Allen says. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it then and I wonder about it now. I wonder if that\u2019s really him or is it people that are encouraging him to act like this. It\u2019s hard to know, but we\u2019re living in a time where it\u2019s like we\u2019re in an earthquake every day here in America. We don\u2019t know what is going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice is vibrating with a mixture of defiance and sorrow. Allen, a 76-year-old grandmother who is married to the former NBA basketball player Norm Nixon, has exceptional grace. Sitting in an Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan, she is wearing a shiny silver jacket and a glittering cross around her neck. Warm and genial, she talks for an hour about the meaning of high art and popular entertainment in this time of Trumpian discord without missing a beat.<\/p>\n
\u2018We didn\u2019t realise how popular we were\u2019 \u2026 Allen as Lydia Grant in the TV adaptation of Fame. Photograph: MGM TV\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Allen\u2019s best known roles include Anita in the 1980 Broadway revival of West Side Story and the dance instructor Lydia Grant in the film and TV series Fame. She has choreographed the Oscars a record 10 times, founded the nonprofit Debbie Allen Dance<\/a> Academy in Los Angeles and was appointed a US cultural ambassador of dance by George W Bush in 2001. She is also a prolific TV director, notably on the medical drama Grey\u2019s Anatomy, while her London production of Cat\u00a0on a Hot Tin Roof won an Olivier award in 2010.<\/p>\n Now, she is returning to directing on Broadway with Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone, a haunting Chekhovian masterpiece by August Wilson<\/a> set in an African American community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1911. At a recent performance, a cheer erupted in the balcony at the Barrymore theatre. Audience members in the stalls turned to look, muttering: \u201cIs it the Obamas?\u201d But it was Allen, making a splendid entrance and giving a regal wave.<\/p>\n Denzel Washington, who has made it his personal mission to memorialise Wilson\u2019s series of 10\u00a0plays, American Century Cycle<\/a>, on film, selected Allen for the project. Washington suggested she direct the stage version first to \u201cexercise those muscles and get those creative juices going\u201d, an offer she enthusiastically accepted.<\/p>\n double quotation markDonald Trump was a fun guy back then [in the 80s]. I don\u2019t know what happened<\/p>\n Preparing for the production, Allen wrote a 40-page study guide for her team, diving deep into Wilson\u2019s historical context and his artistic inspirations. \u201cIt speaks to me because it is so intergenerational,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u00a0are young people, young adults and older people.<\/p>\n \u201cThe play itself is so full; it is all of August Wilson. The greatest humour, the greatest dramatic journey for the characters, the real experience of spiritualism \u2026 This particular play attracts me because it\u2019s where memory and the past collide, where religion and spirituality collide, and it makes for a real experience in theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n The play is set half a century after the emancipation of African Americans, but its protagonist, Herald Loomis, is a victim of peonage, a brutal, state-sanctioned system of forced labour that effectively extended slavery well into the 20th century. His trauma is passed down the generations \u2013 and resonates anew in Trump\u2019s US.<\/p>\n \u2018The play is so full\u2019 \u2026 Allen with (from left) Don Cheadle and the co-stars of Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone, Taraji P Henson and Cedric the Entertainer. Photograph: Bruce Glikas\/WireImage<\/p>\n \u201cHerald Loomis\u2019s search for his identity begs the question of America: who are we?\u201d says Allen. \u201cWhat is our identity? Because everything that\u2019s happening right now is beyond explanation, beyond reason, beyond understanding. There are these leaders all over the world who are vilifying their people\u00a0by their actions of unwarranted aggression.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for the American people, who are suffering at the gas station<\/a>, at the grocery store, paying their bills, paying for their kids. I don\u2019t know what happened to \u2018Make America great again\u2019. That was an idea that sounded good, but\u00a0I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re great right now if we are the cause of so much chaos and destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n Born in Houston, Texas, to Vivian Ayers Allen, a poet, playwright and cultural activist, and Andrew Allen, an orthodontist, she fell in love with dance as a child. \u201cI was always the entertainment for the family,\u201d she says, recalling days spent dancing to the radio and watching musical films with her sister, dreaming of replacing Shirley Temple or dancing alongside Bill Robinson, the Nicholas Brothers and Gene Kelly.<\/p>\n At the top of their game \u2026 with her husband, the former basketball pro Norm Nixon, at the 2025 Met Gala. Photograph: Jamie McCarthy\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The main ballet schools in segregated Houston flatly refused to accept Black children, so Allen\u2019s mother found a man who was retired from the Mariinsky Ballet to teach her daughter privately, putting Allen \u201cway ahead of everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n At 16, Allen flew alone to audition for the North Carolina School of the Arts. Despite a flawless performance\u00a0\u2013 the instructors used her to demonstrate moves for the rest of the class \u2013 she was rejected. Allen was told, she says, \u201cmy body wasn\u2019t right for it and I should do something different\u201d. Her voice tightens at the memory, even after 60 years. \u201cIt was terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n The return journey was heartbreaking. When her mother met her at the airport gate, she offered no comfort. \u201cShe said: \u2018You failed.\u2019 I said: \u2018Mom, I was good in the audition.\u2019 \u2018You failed.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWow. That was tough, because, honest to God, she was not letting me wallow in any self-pity. I had to take responsibility. It took me a while to understand why she did that. It was hard, but it was a much\u2011needed truth and she was loving me by being tough like that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Viewers learn things that have saved lives\u2019 \u2026 with James Pickens Jr in Grey\u2019s Anatomy, on which she serves as the executive producing director. Photograph: Ser Baffo\/Disney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Allen studied at Howard University in Washington DC \u2013 \u201cthe Black Harvard\u201d \u2013 where she found a culturally rich, empowering environment. \u201cIt was a better school for me, because it was right in the middle of \u2018Say it loud, I\u2019m Black and I\u2019m proud\u2019,\u201d she says, referring to the James Brown song that became an anthem of the Black Power movement.<\/p>\n Allen\u2019s career began its ascent, leading to an audition for the 1980 Broadway revival of West Side Story. She found herself alone in a theatre with the composer Leonard Bernstein<\/a>. Brimming with confidence, the young Allen asked the maestro: \u201cWould you like me to sing for you? Would you like me to dance for you? Or do you want a little of both?\u201d Bernstein wanted to\u00a0see everything.<\/p>\n Soon, the choreographer Jerome Robbins was brought in. Allen says: \u201cHe was like: \u2018Oh, wow.\u2019 Then he made me go and learn [the song] America, just the beginning of the choreography. So I sang a little bit of it and danced it. He ran up: \u2018Anita, Anita!\u2019 He was calling me Anita.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, after a small part in Fame, the film, came the TV adaptation. As the fierce, demanding dance teacher Lydia, Allen delivered the memorable lines: \u201cYou\u2019ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying \u2026 in\u00a0sweat.\u201d She won a Golden Globe for the role, along with two Emmys for choreography.<\/p>\n \u2018We cannot raise a country to be powerful if we\u2019re raised on fear.\u2019 Photograph: Justin Jun Lee\/The Guardian<\/p>\n When the cast visited the UK for a concert tour, the reception was staggering. \u201cWe didn\u2019t realise how popular we were until we got off the plane and there were just hundreds of people out there screaming for us at the airport,\u201d she says. They performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London and met Diana, Princess of Wales.<\/p>\n Allen was the glue holding the young, diverse cast together: \u201cWe went everywhere and so much was going on on that bus. I was like their mamma, their daddy, their psychiatrist, their director, their choreographer. I was everything for them and they were everything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Allen directed 10 episodes of Fame and has since directed several other TV shows, including the producer Shonda Rhimes\u2019s political drama Scandal and her legal thriller How to Get Away With Murder. Rhimes also invited her to direct an episode of Grey\u2019s Anatomy. \u201cWhat a wonderful experience, that very first episode, because they were all such fans of Fame,\u201d Allen says. \u201cPatrick Dempsey<\/a> can stand in perfect fifth position. He studied ballet somewhere!\u201d<\/p>\n Allen has directed many more episodes and also plays the recurring character Dr Catherine Fox. Allen says: \u201cI came on to the show doing the first penis transplant. I couldn\u2019t believe it. Shonda\u00a0said to me: \u2018I hope you like penises.\u2019 I\u2019m like: \u2018What?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Keep that positive spirit of joy in what you do\u2019 \u2026 Allen in the Fame series alongside Gene Anthony Ray as Leroy Johnson. Photograph: NBC Universal\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Grey\u2019s Anatomy, now in its 22nd season, is the longest-running primetime medical drama in US TV history. Allen, who is also the executive producing director, says with evident pride: \u201cThe millions of people who are fans learn about their medical situation; they learn things that have saved lives.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Covid happened, we did a\u00a0whole year of Covid, which allowed people to grieve. It was incredible what we did and how we were able to be in the living room with those audiences who could now not go anywhere and could experience, in this way, what was happening in\u00a0their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Allen\u2019s producing credits are equally formidable, not least her work on Steven Spielberg\u2019s Oscar-nominated historical epic Amistad. The film tells the story of a group of enslaved Mende people from Sierra Leone who rebelled against their captors in 1839 before being arrested and imprisoned, prompting a legal battle. Citing international bans on transatlantic slave trading, the US supreme court ruled in the Africans\u2019 favour in 1841, freeing them to return home.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was one of the most incredible legal cases to go before the supreme court. I want the supreme court to look at the movie right now and remember that it can make a decision that may not be popular, but is just, right, fair. That movie was incredible. Steven Spielberg, I love him so much. I\u00a0call\u00a0him my brother for real.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markI came on to Grey\u2019s Anatomy doing the first penis transplant. Shonda Rhimes said to me: \u2018I hope you like penises\u2019<\/p>\n The court is far from the only US institution under siege today. Soon after his return to power, Trump seized control of the John F\u00a0Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, had\u00a0his name added to its marble walls, purged many of its staff and then announced that it will close for two years of \u201crenovations\u201d. Allen had been an artist in residence at the Kennedy Center for\u00a0more than 15 years.<\/p>\n \u201cI went there when people said: \u2018Debbie, you shouldn\u2019t go.\u2019 I said: \u2018I am going to go, because that\u2019s my house, too.\u2019 I raised so many hundreds of young people at the Kennedy Center. I did no less than six standing-room-only productions there and I knew everyone. I knew the guards, I knew the people in the cafeteria, the people in the prop shop. I knew all\u00a0of them.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then everything changed and we can\u2019t go back now. Nobody can. The pre-eminent performing arts centre in America; how does it get shut down? How does this happen? The world is looking to us to help them know where to go. How does this happen? This is a question. It\u2019s one of our crown jewels, so hopefully it will come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, while Trump\u2019s cultural vandalism has directly affected the institutions that Allen helped build and sustain, the Kennedy Center may yet endure and thrive again. She refuses to succumb to despair. She believes that the US\u2019s resilience, creativity and refusal to be silenced or intimidated will save it from its authoritarian descent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot raise a country to be powerful if we\u2019re raised on fear,\u201d says Allen. \u201cIt will not prevail.\u201d Where some see insurmountable racial division, Allen sees a multiracial coalition fighting for the soul of the country. \u201cYou see predominantly white America standing up, saying: \u2018This is not our\u00a0country. We want to be free.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n When asked what advice she would give to her younger self \u2013 the girl who arrived in New York to start her career literally barefoot, having arrived by car and accidentally packed away all her shoes \u2013 her answer is simple. \u201cI would say: Debbie Allen, keep that positive spirit of joy in what you do, and inquiry of what you want to know, and dedicate it to the craft,\u201d she says with a warm, resilient smile. \u201cStay there. Stay on that path.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone<\/a> is at the Barrymore theatre, New York, until 26 July<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Debbie Allen once found herself judging the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City alongside a charismatic property developer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-579729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}