(1842-1932)
Born in Philadelphia, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson began as a platform lecturer, then intertwined careers as an actress and playwright. In 1876, she played Anne Boleyn in her own play A Crown of Thorns; or, Anne Boleyn in Boston. The savage reviews of both her acting and her writing did not deter her from reviving it in New York a year later and again in 1882. The New York Times reviewer of Dickinson's performance as Hamlet at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1882 acknowledged that she was "an intelligent and a gifted woman in her manner," yet she made "a conspicuous example of pretentious and presumptuous incompetence" (21 March 1882). She was fortunate enough to get Fanny Davenport to play the title role in her play An American Girl (1880) at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and still it was found dull.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.