CLIFTON FORGE, VA (VR) — Jana Allen, spokesperson, emcee, and vocalist for The Virginia Opry, will be traveling from Montgomery, Ala. to Wilmington, N.C. to view the premier of “Remember Yesterday,” the film in which she stars.
Allen landed the lead female role and portrays Jenny Hill-Devlin, a woman who has given up her career as an actress to remain in her hometown only to get a second chance 20 years later to become a star.
“Remember Yesterday” is set in Wilmington, N.C., and the world premier will be at the Stone Theatre in Wilmington on Thurs., Aug. 11, with two screenings, one at 7:00 p.m. and the other at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are priced at $12.
Having landed speaking roles on such television shows as “Dynasty,” “Righteous Gemstones,” and a reoccurring role on “Manhunt Unabomber,” Allen landed her first romantic lead role as Jenny Hill-Devlin.
She landed her first significant TV role by portraying the surviving roommate of her friend who was murdered, and in the episode of “Psychic Witness,” titled “Why My Child,” she helped lead the police to arrest the killer.
Also, she was cast in “The Shunning,” a Hallmark movie directed by Michael Landon Jr. She performed as a pregnant Amish wife, and she had a speaking role and performed in three scenes.
Allen returned to the Alleghany Highlands to perform in one of the lead roles in the docudrama, “Gift from a Yankee,” a film that aired on PBS West Virginia.
In “Fear Street,” a made for TV movie, she portrayed an abused woman who was eventually killed by her abusive live-in boyfriend, and she landed a speaking role in “Mr. Mercedes,” a movie based on Stephen King’s novella by the same title.
One of her disappointments as an actress is that after landing a role in “Get Out,” a box office success that played in theatres across the country and continues to be seen on reruns on TV, the first scene in the movie in which she portrays a housewife going about her business inside of her home in the suburbs while a kidnapping takes place on the street in front of her home, was edited out of the movie. She was paid for acting in the film, but she will not be seen in the movie unless an uncut director’s version of the film is released on DVD.
Allen is a member of SAG/AFTRA, a union made up of 160,000 members who are radio personalities, actors and actresses in the motion picture and television industry.
She is represented by Stewart Talent Atlanta and Avenue B Talent Management, and she recently completed filming in Atlanta for the “First Lady” in which she portrays Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary.
Other films she has landed speaking roles in are “The Hollow,” “The Taking of Deborah Logan” and “Breath Deep.” She also portrayed an airline attendant in a scene with Sacha Barron Cohen on “Eastbound and Down.”
Starring with Allen in “Remember Yesterday” are Jenique Bennett and Ron Fullica. J.R. Rodriquez directs “Remember Yesterday,” and he wrote the screenplay for it.
After making her debut as an actress and vocalist on stage at the Historic Stonewall Theatre in Clifton Forge as a 6th grader in 1992, by singing and acting in “A Musical Tribute To the Railroad,” a two-act musical performed by the Stonewall Players, Allen graduated from Alleghany High School in 2000.
Next, she earned a bachelor’s of arts degree in communications at Liberty University in 2003, completed an internship as a TV reporter in Norfolk and completed two years of training in the Meisner technique of acting at the William Esper Studio in Manhattan.
She has lived in Studio City, Calif. where she performed as a vocalist at El Sids, filmed a TV commercial and appeared on a TV game show.
Allen is married to Lieutenant Colonel Doug Bahrns of the U.S. Marine Corps, and recently, the couple moved from Snead’s Ferry, N.C. to Montgomery where Bahrns is now stationed.
Having appeared in “The Bleeding” in a scene with Michael Madsen, a Hollywood premier, Allen was unable to attend the screening in Hollywood, and the screening of “Remember Yesterday” will be her first to attend having landed the lead female role.
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