Edgardo Colona

Don Edgardo Colona (1846–1904) was the stage name of Edgar Chalmers, a hard-working lesser tragedian in British theater.

Colona grew up in Mexico, the son of a Scots mining engineer. He first appeared on a British stage at the age of eighteen, in a performance of Hamlet, and soon joined the Drury Lane company.^[1] Other Shakespearian roles included Richard the Third, Othello, and, in the eighteen-nineties, a disastrous Macbeth at the Old Vic. (As Don Edgardo was about to enact the murder of Duncan, an audience member shouted "Go home! And leave the poor old king alone!")^[2] Colona also wrote or adapted a number of plays, the most successful of which were Crime and Atonement^[1] and Don John of Seville, a blank verse work first performed at the Elephant and Castle Theater in 1876.^[3]