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There’s gotta be a way of tapping into that audience and getting some of
these people interested.”
Mantegna noted that sports fans, particularly Cubs fans, were devoted
to their teams and suggested the cast do something that revolved around
that. They agreed, and their “homework” became going to Wrigley Field
and attending baseball games.
They found themselves in the bleachers with a collection of people
that seemed to be there almost daily, and ended up zeroing in on them.
“We infiltrated among them; we befriended them,” Dennis says. “We’d
bring tape recorders in and tape our conversations without them knowing
it. We’d take pictures of them. We investigated their lives and came back
and talked about them.” After changing their names and fictionalizing the
characters’ lives, members of the Organic Theater Company wrote the play
around their newfound friends. “That’s how ‘Bleacher Bums’ came to be
written by thirteen authors,” Dennis says, “but it was from an idea from
Joe Mantegna, who gets special credit.”
“Bleacher Bums” became the company’s next big hit. It also signaled the
end of Franz’s five-year involvement with the Organic Theater Company.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF FILM
Franz’s first film opportunity – other than as a glorified extra in Robert
Altman’s “A Wedding” – arrived with a role in “The Fury,” directed by Brian
De Palma in Chicago, which he won via an audition arranged by a free-
lance agent. The movie was to star Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes.
“I did my reading for the casting director, Lynn Stalmaster, and when
I came home that night,” Dennis laughs, “I hadn’t heard anything, so I
cops by driving through the tougher streets of Chicago in Dennis’s father’s
car –a non-descript sedan of a type that law enforcement commonly
used – pretending to be undercover cops. They’d pull up and park as some
apparent illicit act was taking place and watch the action. Sometimes
they’d get up to exit their vehicle, just to enjoy the sight of people
scattering in every direction. Dennis and Joe also frequented restaurants
and diners where policemen congregated, to observe them.
“Cops” ends with the emotional shooting of the bad guy. This was
the first time The Organic Theater Company tried what Dennis calls “a
naturalistic piece of work,” and he liked it. “Not having to perform to the
last guy in the back row in the theater,” he notes, “was a major turning
point for me. I realized how much I really liked bringing everything in,
not pushing everything out.
“From that point on,” he says, “I began to look at actors and
performances differently. I like watching minds work. I like watching
performances that don’t necessarily have a lot of flamboyance.”
“Cops” ran for a year and the company eventually took it to Europe.
BLEACHER BUMS
The last thing The Organic Theater Company did as a group
was write and perform “Bleacher Bums.” At the time, Joe Mantegna
lived in what is now Wrigleyville, in between Wrigley Field and the
Beacon Street Theater. As the group threw around ideas for their next
production, Dennis remembers Joe saying, “You know, man, every day
when I pass by Wrigley Field, there’s like forty thousand people pouring
out of there. And we’re trying to fill up a three-hundred-seat theater.
“Bloody Bess: A Tale of Piracy and Revenge,” featuring swordplay and acrobatics, may not
have been “a great piece of art,” but it was a crowd pleaser for the Organic Theater Company
(from left) Michael Saad, Dennis Franz and Joe Mantegna, as pirates no doubt
Brian De Palma’s “Body Double” starring Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith featured a film
within a film, wherein Dennis plays Rubin, director of a vampire B-movie. In photo: Dennis
Franz and Craig Wasson