Scream! Bleed! Take Off Your Clothes!: Stuart Gordon and Chicago’s Organic Theater Company (Chicago Visions and Revisions)

A captivating firsthand account of Chicago’s groundbreaking, tumultuous Organic Theater Company.

When the founder of the Organic Theater Company died in 2020, the Chicago Tribune asked, “Did one person invent Chicago theater? If so, it was Stuart Gordon.” And yet, this iconic theater group is arguably the most influential Chicago company whose story has never been fully told. 

In its heyday, from 1969 through 1985, the Organic’s high-spirited, gutsy, and close-knit company created more than thirty idiosyncratic works. A springboard for playwright David Mamet and for the television series ER, it also was formative in the careers of many well-known actors, including Joe Mantegna, André De Shields, Meshach Taylor, and Dennis Franz. Scream! Bleed! Take Off Your Clothes! is the story of a young theater company that always pushed boundaries with an anarchic exuberance. Drawing on extensive interviews and archival research, this insiders’ account, assembled by three Organic members and an artistic associate, details those exciting productions and the company’s complicated internal dynamics, while also positioning the group within Chicago’s vibrant theater scene and the larger culture of the time.

Mary Griswold enjoyed a fifty-year career as a scenic and costume designer and as a scenic artist. She lives in Evanston, IL.

Cordis Heard is a Chicago and New York-based actor and teacher who has performed both on and off Broadway, as well as in television, film, and commercials.

Jim Rinnert (1944–2025) was posthumously inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in recognition for his work as a writer, visual artist, philanthropist, and AIDS activist.

Mike Saad worked on ten productions at the Organic Theatre from 1973 to 1980, culminating in a Chicago Emmy for the WTTW production of Bleacher Bums. He divides his time between Chicago and Toledo.