Free Rubicon Season Preview at the Marjorie Luke Theatre

The Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, the charmingly intimate home to some of the top productions in our region, is having a special free Santa Barbara preview of its upcoming season on Wednesday, October 22, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, 721 E. Cota St. The event is free, but tickets are required; click here for reservations. 

Titled Crossroads: Moments That Can Change Everything and hosted by Rubicon Founders Karyl Lynn Burns and James O’Neil, and Incoming Producing Artistic Director J. (Jeremy) Scott Lapp, guests will hear insights from some of the directors, playwrights, and artists in our upcoming season of dramas, comedies, and musicals, with performances from the World Premiere ’70’s musical Somebody to Love, and the soaring turn-of-the-century epic Ragtime!

After the presentation, there will be refreshments and an opportunity to meet and mingle with the artists, as well as the opportunity to sign up for discounted show subscriptions the chance to win a four-day-three-night Million Dollar Quartet Memphis Getaway, and receive a $25 Rubicon gift card for extra tickets, classes, or other Rubicon activities. 

Rubicon’s 2025-2026 six-show season includes the company’s 50^th main stage World Premiere (one of three blockbuster musicals in the season), a comic thriller featuring favorite Rubicon artists, and an historical drama. The season also includes a partnership with The Acting Company in New York after last year’s successful WinterFest, offering audiences a chance to see two extraordinary classics (one a world premiere adaptation) in repertory.

The coming season also marks a crossroads for Rubicon as an organization, as Co-Founder and Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns retires at the conclusion of the 2025/2026 season and J. (Jeremy) Scott Lapp takes over as the company’s next artistic leader. Former artistic director of CCAE Theatricals in San Diego and winner of the Craig Noel Award for Best Director for Witnesses, Lapp’s directing credits include work in New York, London, Denmark, and Tokyo, as well as last season’s award-winning production of Bonnie & Clyde at Rubicon. Lapp will share the position of producing artistic director with Burns beginning this fall in order to facilitate a smooth transition process. 

Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025-2026 season has already kicked off with a musical set at a landmark moment in music history – Million Dollar Quartet, running through November 9. See Maggie Yates’s preview here.

The journey continues at the crossroads of fantasy and reality with what may well be the most popular rom-com of all time – William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Dec. 3–21). In this captivating coming of age story, a co-production with The Acting Company of New York (TAC), four rebellious teenagers run away from home, only to end up having a wild and uproarious adventure entangling them with a fairy king and queen and a group of amateur actors preparing to perform for a royal wedding. Joyful, high-spirited, full of mischievous magic, mistaken identity, and uproarious hijinks, Midsummer reminds us of the folly — and wonder — of the human heart. The production is helmed by Santa Barbara resident and esteemed regional theatre artist Risa Brainin. 

As with last year’s TAC partnership, Midsummer is presented in repertory with a second classic — the World Premiere adaptation by Nikki Massoud of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (Dec. 2-21) featuring the same multi-talented, multi-cultural cast. Brimming with unexpected hilarity and romantic heart, Massoud’s fresh take on Great Expectations is carved from the timeless tale that has captivated centuries of readers. Great Expectations is an optional add-on for main-stage subscribers. TAC’s Midsummer and Great Expectations premiere in Ventura, and Rubicon audiences will once again have the privilege of being a part of the launch of The Acting Company’s National Tour.

Rubicon’s late winter offering The 39 Steps (Feb. 11–Mar. 1, 2026), written by Patrick Barlow based on the novel by John Buchan and the classic Hitchcock film, is a wildly inventive farcical tale of mistaken identity, espionage, and split-second decisions that change everything. This story follows a chance encounter with a stranger that catapults an ordinary man into a world of espionage across the Scottish countryside, with only his wits (and trench coat) to help him survive. Director Jenny Sullivan and Scenic Designer Matthew Herman have conceived an environmental set so that the action of the play will happen in and out and around the audience. The versatile cast, headed by company member Joseph Fuqua, play over 150 characters in a whirlwind of costume changes, clever staging, and nonstop laughs. 

Somebody to Love (March 25-April 12, 2026), a world premiere ‘70’s rock musical, follows four college friends who meet freshman year and pledge to stay connected and change the world — only to discover that life, love, and dreams don’t always follow the plan. Created by Prudence Fraser and Robert Sternin (writers of hit TV shows like The Nanny, and Off-Broadway’s Under My Skin, this rock-and-roll musical is a timely story about the choices we make; the trials, triumphs, and turning points that define a lifetime; and the one thing that matters most – somebody to love. Songs include “Dance to the Music,” “Call Me,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Feel Like Making Love,” “Locomotive Breath,” and “Taking It to the Street,” as well as the title song.

Rubicon’s “Crossroads” season continues in the late spring with the historical drama Eleanor (May 13-31, 2026) by Mark St. Germain. In this tour-de-force solo performance described as “brilliant and emotionally relevant” by the Wall Street Journal, Kandis Chappell brings First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to vivid life. Candid and commanding, vulnerable and visionary, from the shadows of the White House to the global stage, Eleanor finds her purpose at life’s greatest crossroads, shaping a legacy that continues to inspire. The riveting story takes audiences from Hyde Park to the White House and beyond and provides a rich personal account of the Roosevelt family, dynasty and presidency. 

The 2025-2026 Season, and Burns’s tenure with the company, concludes with the soaring, epic musical Ragtime (Oct. 21-Nov. 8, 2026), directed by J. Scott Lapp. This Tony Award–winning musical masterpiece is a portrait of a country — and its people — on the brink of change. Based on E.L. Doctorow’s acclaimed novel set at the turn of the twentieth century in New York, three distinctly American tales are woven together — that of a stifled upper-class wife, a determined Jewish immigrant, and a daring young Harlem musician — united by their courage, compassion, and belief in the promise of the future. Together, they confront history’s timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair. The free Crossroads season preview takes place on Wednesday, October 22, at 7 p.m. at the Marjorie Luke Theatre, 721 E. Cota St. The event is free, but reservations are required; click here to reserve your spot.