Jo Harvey Allen
image courtesy of L.A. Theatre Works
Jo Harvey Allen, actress, playwright, poet, and pioneer of women in radio, is best known for her numerous film roles and critically acclaimed one-woman shows; called “A Storyteller in the Best Texas Tradition” by the LA Weekly, “Funny, Amazing, Profound…a knockout performer and writer who vanishes into her luminous material!” by LA Reader and “has elicited comparisons with Flannery O’Connor” according to the New York Times. Art in America calls Counter Angel, written and performed by Allen “indeed a work of art!” Her co-staring film roles include Fried Green Tomatoes, David Byrne’s cult classic True Stories, and the award-winning independent film The Other Kind (Nominated Best Lead Actress, International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema, Berlin, 2017). She also appears in Tommy Lee Jones film, The Homesman (Cannes 2014 & Winner of Women Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Ensemble Cast, 2014). Allen’s most recent theater work Covenant was co-written and performed with her husband, artist/songwriter Terry Allen. Her photographic and video installations have been exhibited at numerous galleries, including The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE, Marion Center for Photographic Arts, Santa Fe, NM, Pillsbury & Peters Fine Arts, Dallas, TX, and most recently at the Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA. She is the recipient of Art Matters and NEA Fellowships and is the 2015 inductee into The West Texas Walk of Fame. The Allen’s have 2 sons and 3 grandsons. They live and work in Santa Fe, NM and Austin, TX.