When current mystery novelist and former Reader theater critic Lenny Kleinfeld (aka Bury St. Edmund) first met Stuart Gordon in 1968, it was at a rehearsal for Gordon’s student production of Peter Pan at the University of Wisconsin. But instead of trafficking in J.M. Barrie‘s Victorian sentimentality, Gordon’s version reflected the upheavals that had ripped through Madison and the rest of the country in the late 60s.
The company also had hit productions of David Mamet‘s Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Bleacher Bums, created by the ensemble from Joe Mantegna’s original concept about a bunch of long-suffering Cubs fans hanging out at Wrigley one afternoon, back when afternoon baseball games were the only ones in town on the north side. (A company with the Organic name still exists today, but the name is all it has in common with Gordon’s troupe.)
