“There’s more drama here than there is onstage” is how Stuart Gordon, founder of Chicago’s legendary Organic Theater Company, described the battle he and a starry, mostly west-coast consortium have been waging to preserve the little basement theater in Uptown’s Hull House Center that once was Organic’s home.
Foremost among the arguments for preservation is the theater’s place in Chicago history. Built and opened in 1966 under the auspices of director Bob Sickinger, it’s the only remaining one of the Hull House group of theaters that gave birth to the city’s now-famous off-Loop scene. In the mid-70s through 1981, it was where Organic produced some of its most iconic shows, from Sexual Perversity in Chicago, David Mamet’s first full-length play to hit the stage, to Mantegna’s brilliant idea, Bleacher Bums. And for 25 years it was the home of Jackie Taylor’s Black Ensemble Theater, where Taylor honed her musical-biography brand of storytelling and built a company strong enough to move, two years ago, into its own new building.
By the time Gassman and Cappleman appeared before the City Council zoning committee on June 11, however, Gordon and several others, including Grease coauthor Jim Jacobs, had gotten wind of the threat and hastily organized an opposition force. Their plan at that point was to buy the building from Gassman and operate it as a two-theater center, and they wanted the committee to give them time to raise money and work out a deal. An online petition asking the zoning commission to save the theater had already gathered 1,300 signatures, and five local leaders were lined up to make the plea.
But by then Gordon’s local support was evaporating. Pegasus’s Duncan seemed to have dropped out of the scene, the landmarks commission said it had no interest in the building, Rabkin withdrew from the consortium, and Gassman announced that he’d reached a tentative agreement with Pegasus to buy out its lease, which runs through November.
