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Magic used to be created on the stage of the old Troubadour Theatre on Henry Street in downtown Lexington. It may have been an ill-equipped 19th century auditorium with bats in the belfry, but when the lights went down and the curtain opened, the magic of quality live theater materialized on the stage.
The guiding force behind this theatrical magic was Albert C. “Al” Gordon, professor of fine arts emeritus at Washington and Lee University, who, as was stated in his obituary in this newspaper last week, “took his final curtain call” on May 30.
Gordon leaves behind a legacy of community and university theater that made a profound mark in Lexington, W&L and beyond, as well as in theater education that impacted the lives of generations of college students.
One of those students, Rob Mish, W&L class of 1976 and current director of the Lenfest Center for the Performing Arts, remembers Gordon arriving at W&L in 1974 to become head of the fledgling fine arts department. “This hadn’t been a thing before,” said Mish. “There were three different departments. He pulled everything together almost immediately without creating turmoil.”
As a director of theater productions, Gordon “wasn’t one to play it safe. He liked to take chances,” said Mish. One of Gordon’s first plays at W&L was a big splashy production of “1776,” a musical about America’s Founding Fathers presented in the bicentennial year of 1976. The play, not especially well known at the time, was very well-received by the community and helped establish Gordon’s bonafides.
Playing the part of John Adams, Mish had a big musical number but had lost his voice in the weeks leading up to the play. Gordon somehow found a way to coax Mish into relaxing and regaining his voice so that the number went off without a hitch. “What really struck me about him was his ability to teach you something without your knowing that he was teaching you something,” said Mish of his mentor, with whom he worked in the theater for about 40 years.
Gordon founded the Henry Street Playhouse and Stock Company in 1978 that became a staple of the community for the next 11 years. He set it up as a summer stock company in which participants in the productions were given certain numbers of shares of stock, depending upon how big their contributions were. Proceeds from the gate were shared among the stock owners. “Al was the driving force behind it,” recalls Mish.
The theater productions featured local talent appearing in an eclectic blend of period and contemporary fare, including plays by George Bernard Shaw, Neil Simon, Tennessee Williams and Shakespeare. There were memorable adaptations of “The Elephant Man,” “Peter Pan” and “Dracula,” the latter of which featured Gordon himself taking on the starring role. As if on cue one night, bats swooped down into the audience during a pivotal moment in the play.
Such community plays were presented at The Troubadour during the summer while W&L theater productions, also under the tutelage of Gordon, were presented during the school year. W&L benefactor Gerry Lenfest was in the audience of one such production one night. What he saw on the stage inspired him to supply the funding for construction of a new, modern, state-of-the-art theater.
W&L’s Lenfest Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1990. As chairman of W&L’s Department of Fine Arts, Gordon ushered in the university’s modern era of first-rate theatrical productions. During his 27-year tenure at W&L, Gordon directed more than 50 plays while teaching courses in theater history and directing. He retired in 2001.
Gordon had a passion for live theater and it showed. We in the community were the beneficiaries.
