The Company

Jordan Mercedes

Jordan is a special event/marketing professional and a mosaic collage artist. She is the Founder of The Art of Rest Retreats for Women and Creatively Open.

Vic Warren, Marketing Director, Program Designer

Vic joined LBSC in 2005 as Marketing Manager. He had early acting aspirations, but turned the creative juices to design and advertising instead. He recently moved from Seattle to Long Beach, and has become thoroughly infatuated with the city, its people, theatre and jazz. Vic engineered our new look with logos for LBSC, the Richard Goad Theatre, recent plays and the Festival. He is also reaching out to the media, so that they'll discover the excellence in LBSC.

Melissa M. Miller, Board Secretary, Production Coordinator

Melissa coordinates the diverse elements of each production: working with the Technical Director to build, paint, hang lights, program the light board, and build props; working with the Costume Designer to organize the storage and maintenance of the wardrobe; training our stage managers; and managing the house. As versatile on stage as she is behind the scenes, she sings, acts, and dances. She is also a gifted writer, and has had two hit shows so far in our Richard Goad Theatre.

Janette Boyd-Williams, Community Liaison

Janette brings to the LBSC 30 years of experience as a professional entertainer, having performed in variety arts and dramatic theaters (primarily in Las Vegas), motion pictures and national television (including featured spots on Good Morning America, The Phil Donahue Show and Entertainment Tonight). She was trained in ballet and jazz dancing and danced and performed comedy in a number of variety shows working with the likes of Jimmy Durante, Merv Griffin, Frank Sinatra and Alan King. She is a member of all of the major performing unions. During her stage career, she produced many of her own shows, After retiring from dancing, she took courses at UCLA in video production and began a career of producing videos for such clients as KKJZ, the southern California jazz radio station, and the Lutheran Church.

Chris Garcia - President

Chris comes to us with 23 years experience in Environmental Health Care Management. His first experience with LBSC was when he volunteered for the 2001 production of Bram Stoker's Dracula. He still has fond memories of painting coffins in the alley at 3:00 am, behind our old storage and rehearsal space. He was also the stage manager for this production. His dedication, organizational skills, and talent for "taking care of the grown-up things", says Artistic Director Helen Borgers, soon led him to become our company president. When the "grown-up things" have allowed him to, Chris has been an active behind the scenes crew member, assisting with prop construction, painting, erecting the festival stage, and doing whatever it takes to keep LBSC moving in the right direction.

He was stage manager for the fourth annual festival at Sterns Park, and has produced all of the festivals since. Chris has been instrumental in establishing a rapport with the Aquarium staff over the past years, and is grateful to the Aquarium management for welcoming us back for a third year.

Approaching his fifth year as company president, he has always considered his position as one of service, and in a supporting role. He prefers to work behind the scenes, and makes every effort to assure that the needs of the Artistic Director, technical staff, crew and support staff are met. "Our company has attracted so many creative, talented, and committed cast and crew members, who have worked so hard to make every production a success," said Chris. "It is an honor to be of service to them."

Doug Orr, Vice President, General Design and Construction

Since the opening of our Black Box Theatre in 2003, Doug has designed all our sets, from H.G. Wells, to Shakespeare, to Oscar Wilde, to Hammett. From Washington, Doug Studied Art at Grays Harbor College before transferring to CSULB. He is a world-class master sculptor, with 25 years in the U.S. Open Sandcastle Competitions, the last ten of which, Doug has qualified for the World championships. He owns the Four Olives Cafe in Bixby Knolls. He also owns Visual Communications, doing commercial decorating for the Westing Hotels and other clients. Doug just redesigned our lobby and created the beautiful floor tile mosaic of Shakespeare. He designed our present base stage and facade.

Helen Borgers- Artistic Director

Although perhaps best known as a 28-year veteran jazz disc jockey at KKJZ (formerly KLON), Helen has been Artistic Director of LBSC since 1997. Born in Kansas City, Mo., Helen moved to Long Beach, CA in 1958. She majored in Dramatic Literature and History at California State University Long Beach. She taught drama and Shakespeare workshops at Poly High School in the ‘70s, and at Cabrillo High School from 1999 to 2003. She has directed and performed in a diverse repertoire, from Euripides to Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams to Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds. In 2007, the Long Beach Arts Council presented Helen with their Distinguished Arts Professional award. Helen wishes to acknowledge the energy, talent, and wisdom of her fellow board members, music director, and design team, who not only make all her dreams come true, but add their own into the mix, forming a creative co-op that is exciting and challenging.

Denise Horvat, Community Liason

Denise has been with Vons for 19 years, but before choosing Vons as a career, she had intended to be an actress. She got involved in acting in high school. By the time she was a senior, she was directing full length plays and winning competitions. She was also a member of South Coast Repertory's Young Conservatory. She has worked on the technical side of the theatre, as a stage manager at an outdoor theatre, a dresser, and also as a prop mistress for Long Beach Civic Light Opera. Out of High School, she attended Orange Coast College as a theatre major and was selected as that department's Theatre Scholar, for outstanding academic performance. She then moved to Los Angeles to study camera acting. However, her career at Vons was blossoming and the wonderful opportunities therein offered lured her away from acting. Success in her career at Vons has turned her in a different direction, but her love for theatre has remained. Being involved with LBSC allows her the best of both worlds.

Ted Hyde, Community Liaison

Ted serves in a variety of capacities with LBSC, both at the Richard Goad Theatre and at the summer festival. He ran both lights and sound for Dracula, The Miser, Hamlet, and The Christmas Carol. He is the sound coordinator for the festival. As Community Liaison, he assists in fundraising and raising community awareness of our activities, bringing many businesses in to collaborate with us through services, funds, or volunteering. Ted is also a community volunteer at KKJZ, where he met LBSC's Helen Borgers and was recruited for the theatre work, which came naturally, as he double-majored in Philosophy and English, with some drama, at the University of Iowa. Ted keeps very busy as a successful Sales Executive in Orange County, but his love of the arts keeps him dedicated to LBSC's goal of presenting great drama to our community.

Sandy Chipman Williams - Educational Outreach Coordinator

Sandy has a degree from UCLA in French and English. She is recently retired from 25 years of teaching language and literature at middle school and high school levels. Since her high school days, when she played Emily in Our Town, through her 25 years of teaching, sandy has been involved with theatre. She participated in the LBCC Summer Repertory productions of Hotel Paradiso and Spoonriver Anthology, the Huntington Beach Playhouse production of A Bad Year for Tomatoes, and The Long Beach Community Players performances of Not Now, Darling and Bedroom Farce. On behalf of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company, Sandy designed a workshop series, Classroom Connections to the Classics, which she led for the Friends of The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts' Educational Outreach program and for The Public Corporation for the Arts' Passport-to-the-Arts program last spring. (This workshop will continue to be available to community groups who desire an entertaining and informative introduction to the life and plays of William Shakespeare.) Sandy serves on the LBSC Board of Directors and is the Educational outreach Coordinator.

Julie Rivett - Development Coordinator

Julie joined LBSC as Development Coordinator in 2007, bringing with her a life-long love of the arts and commitment to volunteerism. Her organizational skills have been honed in a variety of capacities with Girl Scouts, Booster Clubs, local government, public schools, and KKJZ public radio, where she first met Helen Borgers. As granddaughter of mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, Julie worked with Helen to bring the first dramatic production of The Maltese Falcon to the RGT in 2005. She actively supports her grandfather’s literary legacy by writing, editing, speaking, and exhibit and event planning. With this background in service and the arts, plus her training in Communications and American Studies at CSULB, Julie will explore new partnerships, fundraising, and development opportunities for LBSC.

Donald W. Coccellato

Donald is often compared to Lon Chaney (the Man of a Thousand Faces), and enjoys playing a variety of diverse roles. He does anything from romantic leads to monsters, from Medieval dragons to Draculian wolves, from villains to women. He joined The Long Beach Shakespeare Company in 1997, serving on the board, as an actor, and as a technician. Donald has also been active in LBSC’s educational outreach programs as an instructor, director, and technician. A Cherokee, he credits his American Indian heritage as a great influence on his acting. Donald was recently featured in an independent film called Rado, and is frequently seen in music clubs around L.A., playing drums in rock-and-roll bands. He teaches English as a second language at Business Communications Institute and is the head bartender at the Greek Theatre.