About

Simone Allen is a music director, singer/songwriter, composer/lyricist for musical theater, pianist, and arranger based in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up near San Francisco in San Rafael, California and she is a graduate of Tufts University (B.A. Music).

Selected Credits:

Music Director for Kill The Whale at Joe’s Pub (upcoming spring 2024), by Daniel Emond

Conductor/Associate Music Director for Cornelia Street at Atlantic Theater Company (winter 2023), starring Norbert Leo Butz

Music Director for Your Own Personal Exegesis at LCT3 Lincoln Center (fall 2022), directed by Annie Tippe

Music Director/Piano for Sweeney Todd at The Hangar Theatre (Ithaca, NY), summer 2021, starring Nik Walker as Sweeney Todd and Donna Lynne Champlin as Mrs. Lovett


Simone is the Associate Music Director for Octet (by Dave Malloy, spring 2022 at Berkeley Rep & spring 2019 at Signature Theatre). She was the music assistant/rehearsal pianist for Lempicka (La Jolla Playhouse, summer 2022) and Black No More (The New Group, winter 2022). She was the music assistant/rehearsal pianist for The Cher Show, which ran at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway from November 2018 to August 2019.

Other credits include:
-Music Director for Assisted (by Adam Chanler-Berat & Julian Hornik; reading May 2024)
-Co-Associate Music Director for Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat (by Nikko Benson & Benjamin Halstead; reading, November 2023)
-Associate Music Director for The Specialist’s Hat (by Cory Finley & Ellis Ludwig-Leone; reading, February 2024)
-Music Director for Where Women Go by Tina Howe (HERE Arts Center, February 2024)
-Keyboard 2 Sub for Pretty Woman (First National Tour)
-Music Director/Transcriber for The 24 Hour Musicals (held at Classic Stage Company, 2023)
-Associate Music Director for Folk Wandering (Pipeline Theatre Company, spring 2018)
-Music associate for developmental readings of Suffs (by Shaina Taub, Public Theater, 2017-2020) -Interim music director for SHIZ: Broadway Meets Sketch Comedy (created by Matt Gehring & Shaina Taub) which performed monthly at Improv Asylum NYC & Upright Citizens Brigade.

She has collaborated with artists such as:

Writers
Alaina Ferris, Alice Pencavel, Ari Afsar, Bandits on the Run, Ben Bonnema & Christopher Staskel, Benjamin Scheuer, Brian Cavanagh-Strong, Brittain Ashford, Cara Reichel & Peter Mills, Carson Kreitzer, Chris Anselmo, Cory Finley, Daniel Emond, Dave Malloy, Drew Gasparini, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, Gelsey Bell, Grace McLean & Kate Douglas, Jaime Jarrett, Jeffrey James & Justin Halpin, Julia May Jonas, Julian Hornik, Julián Mesri, Lila Blue, Mark Eitzel, Mark Sonnenblick, Matt Gould, Max Vernon, Michelle J. Rodriguez, Nikko Benson & Benjamin Halstead, Niko Tsakalakos, Phil Roebuck, Ryan Scott Oliver, Shaina Taub, Simon Stephens, Tarik Trotter (aka Black Thought of The Roots), Zoe Sarnak

Music directors / supervisors / arrangers / orchestrators
Ada Westfall, Alex Lacamoire, Andrea Grody, Andrew Resnick, AnnMarie Milazzo, Ben Moss, Brian Usifer, Britt Bonney, Charity Wicks, Chris Fenwick, Cian McCarthy, Cynthia Meng, Dan Schlosberg, Daryl Waters, David O, Ellen Winter, Geoffrey Ko, Heath Saunders, John Clancy, Justin Goldner, Justin Levine, Kurt Crowley, Matthew Dean Marsh, Meg Zervoulis, Mike Brun, Myrna Conn, Or Matias, Patrick Sulken, Remy Kurs, Rodney Bush, Shane Parus, Sheela Ramesh, Sinai Tabak, Sonny Paladino, Will Shuler, Zane Mark

Directors / choreographers / producers
Abigail Holland, Aimée Hayes, Alex Timbers, Andrew Neisler, Annie Tippe, Antonio Brown, Arpita Mukherjee, Ben Hobbs, Bill T. Jones, Daniel Goldstein, Ellie Heyman, George C. Wolfe, Hope Boykin, Jessica Kahkoska, JJ Maley, Laurie Woolery, Machel Ross, Marshall Pailet, Mayte Natalio, Monet, Natasha Sinha, Neil Pepe, Rachel Chavkin, Rachel Sussman, Raja Feather Kelly, Sanaz Ghajar, Sarna Lapine, Scott Elliott, Sivan Battat, Sonya Tayeh, Tatiana Pandiani, Tim Sanford

Accompanied and/or music-directed performers such as:
Aaron Tveit, Adam Pascal, Amber Gray, Amber Iman, Brandon Victor Dixon, Donna Lynne Champlin, Eden Espinosa, Ephraim Sykes, Gabriel Ebert, George Abud, Jenn Colella, Jennifer Damiano, Jessie Shelton, Karen Olivo, Katrina Lenk, Kyle Scatliffe, Lillias White, Mary Beth Peil, Mary Kate Morrissey, Michael Cerveris, Micaela Diamond, Nik Walker, Nikki M. James, Norbert Leo Butz, Stephanie J. Block, Tamika Lawrence, Tarik Trotter

Performed at venues such as:
54 Below, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Stage 2, Broadway Sacramento (SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center), Classic Stage Company, The Green Room 42, The Hangar Theatre, Joe’s Pub, Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Lake Lucille, NYU Skirball Center, Le Poisson Rouge, New World Stages, O’Neill Theater Center, Rockwood Music Hall, Upright Citizens Brigade, Signature Theatre Company, Symphony Space

As a New York SongSpace grant recipient, Simone developed a new musical Opus loosely based on the life of Clara Wieck Schumann. She is a featured songwriter for Letters to the President, a multi-composer song cycle conceived by director Michael Bello and dramaturg Jessica Kahkoska.
She was a featured songwriter in Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s New Songs Now series in July 2018. She has performed two concerts of her singer-songwriter & musical theater material in NYC: at The Green Room 42 in December 2019 and at 54 Below in January 2018. She is a composer in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.

Simone won the 2017 protest song contest "Songs of Freedom: Music for the People, By the People" with her song "Never Gonna Stop", featured in the NYCLU's Broadway Stands Up For Freedom concert at the NYU Skirball Center (Danny Goldstein/Kurt Crowley). In May 2017, she presented a concert at Tufts of thirteen original songs with a band and fifteen guest singers. 

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Music director/associate music director:
Another Rose/Virgin Voyages (MD Cast 2, MD Cast 1: Matthew Dean Marsh, arranger: Ada Westfall); The Hello Girls (AMD for January 2024 reading, MD: Ben Moss); Oy Vey! A Night of Jewish Excellence for Hanukkah (54 Below); Prospect Musical Theater Lab (Symphony Space); The Leading Lady Club (54 Below); Comedy of Errors (Public Theater Mobile Unit, AMD, reading); The Tattooed Lady (AMD sub, MD: Rodney Bush); Liner Notes On Love and Music (The Green Room 42); Against Women & Music (The Civilians, online concert reading); NYU Reality Show; Wonder Boy (Musical Theatre Factory); One Way (NAMT); Scarlet Night/Virgin Voyages (songwriter: Max Vernon); The King’s Wife (AMD for February 2020 workshop, MD: Ellen Winter); LadyShip (NYMF); Tamasha Nights (Hypokrit Theatre Company); Ruby & Charlie (Henson Residency, O’Neill Theater Center); Pie Shop Play (Corkscrew Theater Festival); East O', West O'! (Ars Nova ANT Fest).

Music assistant/associate/copyist:
Hearts Beat Loud (reading), Cornelia Street (reading), The Karate Kid (work sessions), A Beautiful Noise (work session), Black Orpheus (work session), Devotion (Signature Theatre, VA; reading), Band Aid (reading, MCC), Twelfth Night (Young Vic; copyist), American Girl Live, Only Gold (Public Theater; work session), As You Like It (Public Works/Public Theater), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Public Theater).

Instrumentalist/rehearsal musician:
Same, Same But Different: The Songs of Drew Gasparini (Piano), Astrov's Lounge/Under the Radar (Piano/Accordion/Melodica/Flute), Deathbed Edition/Ars Nova ANT Fest (Accordion), JLo At the Dance Call/Ars Nova ANT Fest (Piano), The Cherry Orchard/Lake Lucille Chekov Project (Piano/Accordion/Melodica/Flute), Cruel Intentions (keyboard sub), Moulin Rouge (rehearsal piano, work session).

Simone music-directed eleven productions at Tufts University with Torn Ticket II, including Chicago, Fly By Night, Little Shop of Horrors, 35MM, Next to Normal, Into the Woods, and She Loves Me. Simone received the Best Music Director award from Tufts 3Ps for Chicago (2017), Little Shop of Horrors (2016), and Next to Normal (2015). Her short original musical See You Have Me was performed at Tufts University in December 2015 and at the Strawberry One-Act Festival in New York City in July 2016 (nominated for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Actor).