Gordon is the head of UC Berkeley’s theater department. Gordon is one of the world’s leading Dramaturgues.

He is the author Dada Performance; Erik Jan Hanussen; Expressionist Texts; The Grand Guignol: The Theatre of Horror and Terror; Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell’Arte; Mikhoels the Wise; The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber; The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia; Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin; as well as one hundred and thirty articles and entries on American, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish theater and cinema.

Gordon has directed productions in Frankfurt, Houston, New York City, Paris, and Zurich. He is the former Associate Editor of The Drama Review and has taught at Lee Strasberg Institute, Michael Chekhov Studio, New York University, and Yale University.