Morten Borgersen (born 12 October 1950 in Skien, Norway) is a Norwegian actor, theatre director, artistic director and writer. He is documented in established reference works, including Store norske leksikon, the Norwegian and English editions of Wikipedia, and the Nationaltheatret's archive.
Career
Borgersen trained as an actor at Statens Teaterhøgskole (the Norwegian National Academy of Theatre); his own curriculum vitae dates the actor's education to 1978, while Norwegian-language sources state that he made his stage debut in 1970. Sources differ slightly on this point. He has acted at a large number of Norwegian theatres, among them Rogaland Teater, Trøndelag Teater, Riksteatret, Teatret Vårt, Teater Ibsen, Oslo Nye Teater, Det Norske Teatret, Nationaltheatret, Fjernsynsteatret (television theatre) and Den Nationale Scene, as well as in film and television. Norwegian sources describe him as having worked in roughly seventy-five roles in modern and classical repertoire; his own CV states "around 75 different parts."
He worked as a freelance director from 1986. Together with Aril Martinsen he was a leading figure in the Homansbyen Teaterselskap in Oslo, which attracted attention for productions including Charles Ludlam's farce Mysteriet Myrna Vep, the musical Stopp verden, jeg vil av, and several cabarets.
Artistic leadership
- 1991–1997: theatre director (teatersjef) of Teatret Vårt in Molde, where he was the institution's first appointed director after a period of collective management.
- 1998–2001: artistic director of Teater Ibsen in Skien.
- 2001–2007/2008: artistic director of Den Nationale Scene in Bergen (sources give the end of his tenure as either 2007 or 2008). He succeeded Bentein Baardson and was succeeded by Bjarte Hjelmeland.
At Den Nationale Scene he directed, among other works, Gunnar Staalesen's 1900: Maskespill and 1900: Maskefall (2002), productions based on Staalesen's popular century trilogy.
Directing and writing
He has directed around fifty productions from 1986 onward, including works by Henrik Ibsen, William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Jon Fosse, Harold Pinter, Ingmar Bergman, Thomas Bernhard, Georg Tabori and Lars Norén, staged at theatres including Den Nationale Scene, Nationaltheatret, Det Norske Teatret, Oslo Nye Teater, Nordland Teater, Opera Bergen and Kilden teater og konserthus. Abroad, he directed Anna Karenina (Tolstoy/Petras) and A Doll's House by Ibsen at the Maksim Gorky Theatre in Vladivostok, Russia.
His publications include:
- Teaterhistorie, bind 2 (non-fiction, 1997)
- Jeg har arvet en mørk skog (novel, 2012)
- Forestillinger (novel, 2014)
- Våre stemmer. HIV – 30 år i Norge (non-fiction, 2015)
His CV also lists a 2025 documentary film consisting of seven interviews with torture survivors, related to the book Våre stemmer.
Name ambiguity
"Morten Borgersen" is not a unique name in Norway. Public listings also show, for example, a manager/partner at the sporting-goods company Anton Sport and a therapist at a muscle and joint clinic in Buskerud. These are separate individuals and should not be confused with the theatre professional described above.
Sources and reliability
The core biographical data above derive from Store norske leksikon, the Norwegian and English Wikipedia articles, the Nationaltheatret archive, Sceneweb, and Borgersen's own official website and CV. Minor discrepancies exist between sources regarding his education year, debut year, and the exact end date of his tenure at Den Nationale Scene; where this is the case, it has been noted above rather than resolved.
