Charlotta Djurström

Hedvig Charlotta Djurström (née Hoffman; 14 May 1807 – 19 May 1877) was a Swedish stage actress. She was the managing director of the Djurström theater company in 1841-1846. She was one of the leading actresses of the countryside theater in Sweden and Finland during the first half of the 19th-century and referred to as the "Joan of Arc of the Countryside" after her most famous role.

Life

Charlotta Djurström was born in Kalmar. She made her debut at the popular travelling theater company of Erik Stålberg, which became known as the Djurström Company when it was taken over by Erik Wilhelm Djurström (1787-1841) in 1827. She married director Djurström and took over the theater company as its managing director as a widow in 1841 until 1846. In 1846, she transferred the leadership and the ownership of the company to the leading actor Rudolf Forsberg and continued as a member of his theater company in 1846-48.

Until the late half of the 19th-century, only the biggest cities in Sweden and Finland had theaters with permanent staff, and numerous travelling theater companies toured between the smaller cities and towns of Sweden and Finland to perform in the theater buildings or temporary stages.

She was a member of the travelling theater companies of J. W. Weselius 1848—50, L. E. Elffors 1850—57, C. G. Hessler 1857—58, A. T. Schwartz 1858—59, and Thérèse Elfforss, W. T. Gille and Hessler.

She was the mother of four children within marriage, notably the actresses Emilie Djurström and Wilhelmina Djurström, as well as an illegitimate son, the actor Hugo Wilhelm Eberhard Djurström (1834—1863). She retired in 1864 and spent her last years in Norrköping, where she died with her daughter Wilhelmina Djurström during a cholera epidemic.