I represent Andrew Jackson Allen. I was born 1776 in New York City. I was such an admirer of Andrew Jackson that I took his middle name as my own, though my friends called me “Dummy” Allen (probably because I was partially deaf and had a speech impediment). That didn’t stop me from becoming an actor, though, and In the summer of 1821 I was the manager of the Jacksonian Theatre Company in Pensacola. We performed at the Tivoli, the popular entertainment venue whose site is now occupied by a replica of the old building in downtown Pensacola.
I came to Pensacola from New York, probably running from creditors, but also drawn by the buzz of a swelling population in anticipation of the exchange of flags. We put on several performances, including The Stranger, which was the first one advertised in The Floridian. In October I left Pensacola to open a new company in New Orleans.
I was described in later years as “tall and erect in person, with firmly compressed features, an eye like a hawk’s nose slightly Romanesque and hair mottled gray. He spoke in a sharp, decisive manner often giving wrong answers.” I died in 1853 and am buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.