Brandon Allmon-Jackson Is Running a Half Marathon, Rehearsing a Broadway Show, and Battling Cancer

Every morning at 6 AM, stage manager Brandon Allmon-Jackson gets up and runs. Lately, he’s been running up to 14 miles. Then after his workout, he heads into rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, where he’s on the stage management team. “Then we have a day off. And if that day is not spent recovering and doing a long run, it's probably spent in chemo,” the 35-year-old tells Playbill.

Allmon-Jackson was recently diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, surprising news given his age (though it coincides with a nationwide rise of younger people getting colon cancer).

You might think that opening a Broadway show while battling cancer would lead to new heights of stress, but speaking to Playbill one morning before rehearsals, Allmon-Jackson was serene and soft-spoken. He credits it to running: “It's so therapeutic,” he says. “It’s nice to escape all of that for a little bit, just listen to my music. It’s just me and my thoughts.”

Allmon-Jackson is so dedicated that even though he is currently going through chemotherapy, on March 15, he will be running the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon (organized by New York Road Runners). Allmon-Jackson will run 13.1 miles to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. After the half-marathon, he’ll be going into rehearsals for Joe Turner, which begins performances March 30 at the Barrymore Theatre. 

In short, he says with a chuckle, “It’s going to be a long day.” 

Below, Allmon-Jackson speaks frankly about his cancer diagnosis, how Sunset Blvd. on Broadway got him into marathon running, and why it’s so important to speak up for your health when you’re an artist. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you get into running?
Brandon Allmon-Jackson: My dad and a lot of my siblings are very athletic. I never really considered myself an athletic person. Obviously, I joined theatre. But in high school, I did do track, because I was not that coordinated. Other sports weren't really my jam, but I was like, I can run, that just involves me taking off. And then I think I got really into it.

I was working on cruise ships in 2015, and then I started going to the treadmill a couple times a week with one of my friends. And then when I wasn't on the ship, and I was back in New York, I was living in Washington Heights. So we would run on the West Side Highway, which was a very beautiful trail. I was only doing two or three miles, and then I was fully out of breath. But I kept it up for a number of years, and eventually that endurance got better, I was able to do more than two or three miles.

And then, once I was able to comfortably do a five and a 10k more consistently, I started looking at other opportunities. It was something that I enjoy doing and I was like, “Well, if I can make a difference while I'm doing it, even better.” Then Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS had their Spring Fling 5 and 10k last year [where theatre people run for charity]. I was at Sunset Boulevard, and a couple of us were in our little running club. I was like, “Y'all, let's do this. Wouldn't this be fun?” So that's how I started running competitively. So it's only been a year of that. Now I'm going into my first half, which is crazy to think that I have the endurance to run that long! It's been a fun challenge mentally, especially when I was learning to call some of the shows, I would run while training [for that]. There was something, mentality, to be like, “All right, this is where it's getting hard, but you push through.” And that was something that could translate from running to learning to call the show: “This is difficult. I'm a little nervous, but I'm going to push through and get through it and come out the other side better than I was before.”

Tell me about your cancer diagnosis.
So I was diagnosed back in December of 2025, with colorectal cancer, stage four. It all started with just a regular physical with my primary care physician, and then from there, we got a colonoscopy, and it was the colonoscopy results that showed that there were lesions in my colon.

When the doctor said that it is cancer, the first thing I thought of was, “Are you kidding me?!” I had the half marathon coming up, and the stage manager was like, “How do we fix this?” That's just the way my mind works, and that's how I function day to day in my job. I have rehearsals for Joe Turner's coming up in February. I have the half marathon to run. There were so many things that I wanted to do, and that was important to me to hold on to those goals, because it gives me something to work towards, to overcome, and not just be at home feeling sick.

Originally, I was just going to be having a colorectal surgery, where they were just going to remove the part of the colon where the lesions were. But a further scan showed that it had progressed over into my liver, which means that it was a stage four diagnosis. So from there, we learned that we had to do a couple cycles of chemo before we could go back to revisiting the colectomy surgery. That was a little hard to hear.

The one shining light, though, after finding out about all this, is that one of my appointments had to get postponed right before Christmas, so I was able to take a very fast flight home and surprise my family. I'm from Arkansas, Motor Rock. So my partner and I boarded a flight and surprised my family the night before Christmas Eve. We flew back Christmas Day because I had an appointment the day after Christmas. It was really good, especially mentally, to be able to see them and get that good family love.

Every three weeks I have to go in for IV chemo. And then for two weeks, I'm taking an oral regimen with the pills. So that is twice a day, and that's for two weeks. I do it for two weeks, and I have one week off. And actually the day of the half marathon is my last day for that cycle on the oral treatment. So I'll be popping my chemo pills, heading to the course, running a half marathon, showering, and then going to rehearsal for the rest of the day. It's going to be a long day.

With your busy schedule, how are you dealing with the side effects of chemo?
There's been a lot of fatigue. There's been a little nausea. When I first spoke with my doctors, the big thing that was important to them and important to me was that I will still be able to be physically active and still be able to work and have a sense of a normal life. They said that helps spiritually and mentally with fighting the disease. And so, what I'm on now allows me to still do that.

But there are still a lot of side effects with the drug that I'm on. There’s Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, which is where your skin starts peeling, that can feel like burning. I have a lot of lotions that I have to carry around to counteract that. For a long period of time, I was wearing gloves. I even kind of joke that my new personality is the long lace gloves that go all the way up my arm. And also special socks, because part of the side effects with the chemo is sensitivity to coldness. We've been in an arctic tundra for the past two months. I swear, every day I had IV chemo was a day that was like, the wind chill is going to be negative three today. So I'm fully wrapped up because any kind of exposed skin hurts.

I did have to put a pause on a lot of my training. There were a couple times where I wasn't sure if I'd be able to continue. I do have prescriptions to help counter the nausea, ointments help with the skin. And even this past chemo cycle, cycle three, was delayed because my doctor wanted me to heal. I couldn't run, I couldn't even take my medicine. I just had to kind of rest up and let all that happen.

But thankfully, there are more good days than bad. It's been a journey, and it's still going.

What was the conversation like with the team at Joe Turner’s Come and Gone?
That was probably the least difficult part of it all. As a stage manager, for me, I hate being the center of attention; if the attention is on me, I probably did something wrong. So having to receive all of this love and have all this focus on me has been interesting for me to have to navigate and get used to and accept it.

There are days where I can't walk as well, and my production stage manager is like, “Can you sit down please and let us take care of this?” It's been a lot of that. It's been a lot of, “Your health is first.” I'm so grateful that I am working with general managers and stage managers and production assistants and directors who understand what I'm going through, and they know that my health is first, and they're actually trying to support me more while I'm just trying to get the work done. That’s been the nicer aspect of it; everyone has been totally behind me on this.

Do you have any advice for artists on how to speak up for themselves, especially with something like colon cancer where you can't get a screening under the age of 45 covered by insurance?
Listen to your body. Your body is going to alert you when something feels off. So if you are seeing symptoms or you feel something is wrong, go and get it checked out. Because even if it's nothing, it's something that you should be aware of, especially with colon cancer. It's showing up a lot more in younger people and younger adults in their 30s. And like you said, most people aren't getting their first first colonoscopy until they're in their 40s. 

So PSA, right now especially, I'm telling people who are just getting into their 30s, get a colonoscopy and just make sure that you know you're healthy and that everything is okay. I wasn't always health first. In my 20s, I was all about hitting the grind and working as much as possible, because I was just so desperate to get my foot through the door. You don't always make healthy choices when you do that. But in order to have that stamina and to keep going, you have to be healthy with yourself in the present, and you have to think more long term. 

And it's just like running! It's just like running: I have to take care of myself. I have to eat correctly. And even during my run, I have to know how to pace myself in order for me to get from point A to point B, however long that distance is in between.