Organic Theater Company

Organic Theater Company, a Chicago theatre, was founded in 1969 in Madison, Wisconsin by artistic director Stuart Gordon and his wife Carolyn Purdy Gordon. Its first play was a production of Richard 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 of Paul Sills, Organic moved to Chicago where Sills helped the theater find a home in the Holy Covenant Church where they produced original adaptations of George Orwell's Animal Farm and Homer's Odyssey. 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 produced Candide which was invited by Joseph Papp to the Public Theater in New York. They also produced Poe by playwright Stephen Most and Warp! by Stuart Gordon and Bury St. Edmund aka Lenny Kleinfeld, an original science-fiction epic adventure in three parts. Warp! was produced on Broadway at the Ambassador Theater in 1973.

Returning to Chicago the company set up shop in the Uptown Center Hull House on Beacon Street. The new company included Joe Mantegna, Dennis Franz and Meshach Taylor. Their first production there was The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit by Ray Bradbury. This was followed by Bloody Bess - A Tale of Piracy and Revenge by John Ostrander and William J. Norris. In 1974 they presented the world premiere of Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet. That same year they embarked on their first European tour playing in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Hamburg.

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