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South Coast Theater Company Gets Broadway, Hollywood Stars For Online "Stream-A-Thon" Fundraiser

Performers from Hollywood, Broadway, and the South Coast are coming together for what amounts to an online version of a telethon to help a two decade old theater company struggling with the financial impacts of the coronavirus crisis.

Rubicon Theater Company is wrapping up a month long festival of mostly online theater events with what they are calling a "Stream-A-Thon."

Karyl Lynn Burns is the Rubicon Theater Company’s Producing Artistic Director.  She says Rubicon reached out to its many friends in the theater community to help.  And, it got a big boost from an actor you know from his many years in the TV series “The Wonder Years” and the movie “Independence Day."

Dan Lauria says he’s loves regional theater companies like the Rubicon, because they are the most willing to give new plays a chance.  But, he says he wanted the online project to be much more than people reading the same old plays.  Celebrities like John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, and Joe Spano were asked to raad their own writings, or something which is special to them.

Lauria hopes that theater-goers hungry for entertainment with stages shut down will enjoy the original readings, and show their appreciation by supporting the Rubicon.

Regional theaters have been especially hard hit by COVID-19.  Even without the pandemic, money is always tight for the non-profit organizations.  They traditionally only get about 50% of their revenue from ticket sales, with the other 50% coming from donors, sponsors, and grants.

Burns says the "Stream-A-Thon" begins at 5 p.m. Wednesday, and runs through midnight.

A number of South Coast businesses have donated items ranging from jewelry, and a guitar to golf passes for giveaways to support Rubicon’s "Stream-A-Thon."  Here's a lik to the event:  https://bit.ly/3cFPqZW

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.