Good morning all!
Last night my friend AB and I attended TOLN's premiere party for the revival of ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE at the Skirball Center here in NYC. As you no doubt know, I've been a soap fan since I was a kid, following the adventures of Erica, the Buchanens, Dorian and Vicki and all the denizens of Pine Valley and Llanview. I was one of those people who scheduled my classes around All My Children. I was one of those people who skipped a class for Greg and Jenny's wedding.
It was an all star crowd and I'm sure if you poke around teh internets today, you'll be able to find red carpet pics and afterparty pics of many stars of both shows. I realized that I'm not as much of a 'reporter' as I used to be as I was reluctant to hit up my favorite stars for photos. You know, it's funny. When I was in the midst of making those uhm blue movies, people would claim that we'd met (I'd know that we hadn't) They'd claim that we'd been in bed together. (We hadn't) They'd approach me with a weird familiarity that was admittedly sometimes nice, but also sometimes awkward. (Who doesn't like that kind of attention?) And last night I felt that same familiarity with nearly every star I recognized - no, I did not actually know them, but I felt as though I did because I have watched them daily for years, sometimes decades.
But at the after party, after I'd downed a couple of proscecos and was about to leave, I ran into actress/playwright Florencia Lozano who plays Tea Delgado on One Life to Live. Flo is a friend of ABs (who was there with me) and I interviewed her on my Bingo show a couple years ago and, after a hilarious evening of soap talk as well as talking about her turn as a writer at Rattlestick Theater (they've produced full productions and readings of her excellent work) we bonded when I asked her if Tea would ever get an 'evil twin' and she replied that I was her 'evil twin'. And so it has been ever since. :)
BTW my public apologies to actress Cady McClain (who plays Dixie on AMC) - you passed by me, I had to say hello and then realized that I had nothing but silly fan gushing for you. Ask Florencia, I really am capable of more intelligent conversation! :)
As for the shows themselves, well, they asked us to keep mum on plot points and not to spoil everyone else's enjoyment of the first day - but I will say that while ALL MY CHILDREN is good (Angie and Jesse are clearly the new Ruth and Joe, this is a good thing), the new ONE LIFE TO LIVE is exceptionally good and well worth checking out. If you loved the tone of the last few years of the show, you will love the new incarnation. Hopefully some of the more ridiculous elements are gone (bags of blood and electroshock therapy) but the tone is still 'anything goes' and the new show wears it extremely well.
During the screening, the crowd cheered when each old favorite showed up on screen and the mood was lively - OLTL started with a David Vickers scene that had no sound so they stopped it and restarted it from the beginning. While there was a momentary dead space in the auditorium and we were all in the dark, actor Tuc Watkins (who plays David) piped up in the audience "Well, what I said was..." which got a big laugh. And then someone in the crowd yelled out "We love you David!" And Tuc shouted back out "I love me too!" followed by more laughter.
You can go to TOLN's website for further info and some previews of the new shows - and, starting Monday April 29th you can watch daily installments on Hulu. As Executive Producer Jeff Kwatinetz said in his opening remarks last night, it's a rare moment in time when we see how television changes. I guess we'll know in a couple weeks whether this is the wave of the future or some odd little experiment. And that's a pretty good cliffhanger if ever I've seen one!
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