Stop-Gap Marks 10 Years of Facing Issues

Stop-Gap marked its 10-year milestone Saturday with a gourmet meal at the Center Club of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and a thought-provoking show at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage.

More than 120 supporters of the nonprofit theater group--which uses scripted plays and workshop exercises to confront emotional crises through “drama therapy”--paid $100 each for an evening that included dinner, an awards ceremony, a silent auction and a performance of “Shadow and Song,” a Stop-Gap production dealing with child abuse, playing at SCR through Saturday.

Proceeds from the benefit, an estimated $18,000, will be used to support ongoing local programs for abused children, said Victoria Bryan.

Bryan, who with executive director Don Laffoon co-founded the Santa Ana-based group, wore a radiant smile at Saturday’s anniversary bash as she talked about Stop-Gap’s first decade.

Bryan said the group performs and conducts workshops for people of all ages, attacking a variety of issues ranging from alcoholism and domestic violence to lack of self-esteem and homelessness.

Although Stop-Gap does not have a theater of its own, it stages programs at various county locations and maintains a schedule of 18 workshops per week; four plays per year, which tour Orange County and Los Angeles schools, and three annual productions--such as “Shadow and Song”--for the general public.

“We started this whole thing on a dream. We had no idea what would happen,” Bryan said. “Tonight we want to thank the people here and so many others who helped our dream come alive.”

Laffoon, in a ceramic bow tie made by his wife (ceramics sculptor Grace Songolo, who also made the awards presented during dinner), said Stop-Gap’s therapeutic use of drama technique was “accepted” by the community right from the start.

“When we decided to put down our roots here, we didn’t know it would be such fertile soil,” he said. “We were doing something no one else in the country was doing, and we found a great deal of support here in ‘conservative’ Orange County.”

Among guests was William Steiner, executive director of the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, which supports Orangewood Children’s Home, an emergency shelter in Orange for abused and neglected children.

Steiner noted that Stop-Gap--which conducts five weekly workshops at Orangewood--was “one of the very first organizations that became involved with helping our kids.”

Steiner said that when Stop-Gap first came to Orangewood (then called Albert Sitton Home) in 1981, 11% of the children had been sexually molested. Eight years later, he said, that figure is 23%. “So for us, Stop-Gap’s work is more important than ever.”