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| Formation | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Type | Theatre group |
| Location |
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Artistic director | Stuart Gordon |
Organic Theater Company was founded in 1969 in Madison, Wisconsin by artistic directorStuart Gordon and his wife Carolyn Purdy Gordon.
Its first play was a production ofRichard III but harassment from the local officials of Madison caused the production to be moved to three different venues before closing. In 1970 at the invitation ofPaul Sills, Organic moved to Chicago where Sills helped the theater find a home in the Holy Covenant Church where they produced original adaptations ofGeorge Orwell'sAnimal Farm andHomer'sOdyssey. When Sills took his production of Story Theater to Los Angeles that summer he invited Organic to produce at his Body Politic Theater on Lincoln Avenue. The company ended up staying there over three years where it producedCandide which was invited byJoseph Papp to thePublic Theater in New York. They also producedPoe by playwright Stephen Most andWarp! byStuart Gordon and Bury St. Edmund(pseudonym forLenny Kleinfeld), an original science-fiction epic adventure in three parts.Warp! was produced on Broadway at the Ambassador Theater in 1973.[1]
Returning to Chicago, the company set up shop in the Uptown Center Hull House on Beacon Street. The new company includedJoe Mantegna,Dennis Franz andMeshach Taylor. Their first production there wasThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit byRay Bradbury. This was followed byBloody Bess - A Tale of Piracy and Revenge byJohn Ostrander and William J. Norris.In 1974 they presented the world premiere ofSexual Perversity in Chicago byDavid Mamet. That same year they embarked on their first European tour playing in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Hamburg.
Returning to Chicago they produced a two part adaptation ofMark Twain'sAdventures of Huckleberry Finn. This production toured the United States and Europe. In the next few years Organic worked withRoald Dahl to presentSwitch Bitch andKurt Vonnegut Jr.'sThe Sirens of Titan In 1976 they createdBleacher Bums and toured the show throughout the United States and presented the show atThe American Place Theater. It was adapted for television and aired nationally on PBS in 1979. In 1985, withStuart Gordon directing, Organic Theatre, in collaboration withGoodman Theatre staged a shortened version of its earlier two-eveningHuckleberry Finn in Chicago. The production was also recorded on stage for aWTTW-TV special. The cast included a youngHedwig and the Angry Inch creatorJohn Cameron Mitchell as Huck,Tom Towles as Pap,Meshach Taylor as Jim, Eric Berg as Tom Sawyer, and an ensemble consisting of Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Roberta Custer, Peter Van Wagner, Michael Fosberg, andRichard Henzel.
In 1981 Organic renovated the Buckingham Theater on Clark Street where it worked with authorMary Renault to adapt her bookThe King Must Die to the stage. This was followed by a musical adaptation ofWilliam Kotzwinkle's bookDr. Rat byJune Shellene andRichard Fire and the company's longest running showE/R conceived by Dr. Ronald Berman.
Notable productions during founding artistic directorStuart Gordon's leadership included:
After “E/R Emergency Room,” Stuart Gordon went to the west coast to make his cult classic sci-fi film "Re-Animator".
Artistic directors afterStuart Gordon includedThomas Riccio[2] andRichard Fire. In 1996 Organic Theater Company and Touchstone Theatre merged under the leadership of Touchstone’s artistic director Ina Marlowe. (For two years the organization did business as Organic Touchstone but is now known again as Organic Theater Company.)
Notable productions during artistic director Ina Marlowe’s leadership included:
Ina Marlowe passed the torch to artistic directorAlexander Gelman at the beginning of 2006. Gelman’s Organic Theater Company is now a company of actors touring with a rotating repertory. Since then the company has producedThe $30,000 Bequest byMark Twain,Bartleby, the Scrivener byHerman Melville, andJoseph Conrad'sThe Secret Agent. He also directedEugène Ionesco'sMan with Bags,Friedrich Durrenmatt'sPlay Strindberg, andShimizu Kunio'sThe Dressing Room.
Over the years, Organic Theater Company venues have included:The Holy Covenant United Methodist Church925 W.Diversey Parkway, Chicago,The Body Politic Theater (later Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater)2257 N.Lincoln Avenue, Chicago,The Uptown Center Hull House4520 N.Beacon Street, Chicago,The Buckingham Theater3319 N.Clark Street, Chicago.
And:2851 N.Halsted Street, ChicagoLoyola University’s Kathleen Mullady Theatre, Chicago,Ruth Page Theatre,LaCosta Theatre.
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