{"id":205,"date":"2019-02-21T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T01:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999939654"},"modified":"2019-02-21T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T01:18:09","slug":"director-brando-cutts-builds-upon-the-legacy-and-swagger-of-his-mentor-helen-borgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/art\/director-brando-cutts-builds-upon-the-legacy-and-swagger-of-his-mentor-helen-borgers","title":{"rendered":"Director Brando Cutts builds upon the legacy, and swagger, of his mentor Helen Borgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brando Cutts, lying on his back, head draped over the end of a small mattress, gags out a never-ending, yet halting stream of direction: \u201cAlways\u2026 go\u2026 for\u2026 my neck,\u201d he tells Pedro Louis, the actor who kneels above him. Louis, who plays the titular character in Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s<\/a> upcoming production of \u201cOthello<\/a>,\u201d dutifully pulses down on Cutts\u2019 windpipe, looking every bit the CPR novice who has really gotten his wires crossed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerfect,\u201d Cutts says, eyes watering. The choking continues as, sitting off stage, Dee Dee Popper, who plays Desdemona, the part Cutts has commandeered for the moment, asks about her character\u2019s reaction when another character enters.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing\u2026 cuz you\u2019re\u2026 dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

And scene.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Choreographer Monica Wasynczuk works with Pedro Louis who plays the titular role in Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s production of “Othello.” Photo by Andrew Roberts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though he is both director of the play which opens Friday, Feb. 22, and the artistic director of the company, Cutts directs with childlike enthusiasm, as if this is the first time he\u2019s encountering the material. It\u2019s what Helen Borgers, founder of LBSC, saw in him when she cast him, pretty much against his will, in a production of \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d she was directing at Cabrillo High. It really was the first time he\u2019d encountered the material.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first year of the drama club at Cabrillo and I was just there to cover it for the yearbook,\u201d he said. \u201cShe looked at me and said, \u2018I need you to be Lord Capulet. I said, \u2018What is that<\/em>?\u2019 But Helen had a way of getting you to do things. I did it. And then I came to every single drama meeting after that and ended up the drama club president by my senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also started showing up at LBSC, doing anything that needed being done. When he first showed up at age 14, it was as Brandon<\/em> Cutts, his given name. That would soon change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was kind of the company pet, company mascot, I guess. I would come in, move a couple benches, that would be my part. So, I guess as a joke, [Helen] started to call me Brando.\u201d<\/p>\n

It stuck. So did he, performing bigger roles and taking on greater responsibilities. They called themselves Ma Borgers and the Brando Kid; he gave her energy, she gave him knowledge, introducing him to great literature, cinema and theater.<\/p>\n

“Helen was a second mother to me,” he said.<\/p>\n

When she was dying from complications after surgery, she made clear that Cutts was her hand-picked successor, telling him on more than one occasion, “When I’m dead, this will be yours.” Her trust in him had grown after he’d come back from a stint in New York.<\/p>\n

He was still young, but the natural leadership that had moved him to start an ROTC program at Cabrillo, and apply to the service academies, began to show itself clearly in the theater. One day, while Helen was staging “MacBeth” and struggling to figure out how to get her actors from the lobby across the stage, Cutts suddenly suggested manufacturing a funeral procession.<\/p>\n

“She just stopped and looked at me,” he said. “I think she thought of me differently after that.”<\/p>\n

LBSC producer Dana Leach agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a discussion as to whether he was old enough to take over,\u201d Leach said. \u201cBut he had just returned from New York and though he was still very young, Helen started to look at him differently than the boy who had moved benches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long Beach Shakespeare Company to rename playhouse after the late Helen Borgers<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n