Thérèse Elfforss

Antoinette Thérèse Elfforss, née Öberg, (born 30 November 1823 in Stockholm – died 16 April 1905 in Stockholm), was a Swedish actress and theatre director. She was one of the most famous country-side actors in the 19th century, and was during the 1870s and 1880s called the most successful theatre-director of her country.

Therese Öberg was born to factory-worker Anders Öberg in Stockholm and enrolled as a student of Sophie Daguin in the Royal Swedish Ballet at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1837. She debuted as an actress at the theatre Nya Teatern in at the vaudeville Mormors dagbok (The diary of Grandmother) in the 1842–43 season, where she was called "A pleasant baith to good houses" before she started touring in the Elfforss' travelling theatre company in 1846. Her way of acting was described as witty, lively and well worked through, and she was called "The Elise Hwasser of the country-side".

She married the actor and director of the company, Lars Erik Elfforss, and after his death in 1869, she became the director of the company, which was one of the most prestigious in Sweden. The Elfforss company toured in both Sweden and Finland, and offered both Swedish and Norwegian drama, often by Ibsen, under the leadership of Therese. In the 1870s–1880s, she was considered the most successful theatre-director in Sweden.

In 1888 she retired as a director. She continued to work as an actor within the Lindberg troup and, from 1890, at the Stora Teatern in Gothenburg before she retired in 1893.