GOTHAM: The Indie Soap Revolution Continues Tonight

The premiere episode of GOTHAM, the new indie soap from Martha Byrne, premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET at GothamTheSeries.com. Byrne, who also stars as Catherine Prescott, the "most successful sales executive for Nicole Miller in 2008," in the series will be having a live chat with fans from 7-8 p.m. ET leading up to the episode.

We Love Soaps has screened the premiere and you don't want to miss it. There are so many clues and teases packed into a few minutes that you will need to watch several times to try to pick up on them all. From mystery voices to what seems like an unexpected reunion, the frenetic first episode leaves you wanting more, exactly what I hoped it would do.

The cast includes Michael Park as Richard Manning who has been described as the "Crown Prince of Wall Street" and Anne Sayre as Tina Havens, Catherine's best friend. For AS THE WORLD TURNS fans seeing these three actors on screen in GOTHAM is a real treat. For people who have never watched WORLD TURNS you will enjoy discovering Byrne, Park and Sayre for the first time. Byrne, director Lisa Brown and the entire team at GOTHAM known what they're doing, know what fans want, and will deliver. What makes this launch even more exciting is all the promise for the future.

Join in tonight as the indie soap revolution continues.

News Round-up: Ripa, Roku, Peggy, Oprah, Compton

The Repercussions of Winfrey's Departure From Daytime TV Far Reaching
Oprah Winfrey's decision to discontinue her longrunning syndicated talk show in 2011 carries with it a long list of repercussions, according to The New York Times. It means the loss of its signature program and millions of dollars every year in revenue for distributor CBS, and for stations, the loss of daytime’s most popular program that generates huge audiences for their local evening news.

Roku Opens Roku Channel Store
Media technology company Roku, Inc., maker of the family of Roku players, is launching the Roku Channel Store and 10 new free channels available to customers on their TVs on Monday, Nov. 23. In addition to audio and video podcasts, Web content, photo sharing and children's entertainment, the Roku Channel Store--accessible via all of Roku's players--will offer an open platform to deliver content to user's TV sets. The additional channels being made available for customers to add include Blip.tv, Facebook Photos, Flickr, FrameChannel, Mediafly, MobileTribe, Motionbox, Pandora, Revision3 and TWiT. EDITOR'S NOTE: WE LOVE SOAPS TV is available on Roku.

At last, Kelly Ripa gets her wedding cake
Thirteen years after eloping to Las Vegas, Kelly Ripa finally got her wedding cake. The no-frills wedding package didn't include cake when she and ALL MY CHILDREN co-star Mark Consuelos got hitched at the Chapel of the Bells here on May 1, 1996. Their story goes full circle Tuesday when they revisit their runaway wedding on LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: EDGE OF NIGHT's Forrest Compton (Mike)
The first thing you notice during a conversation with actor Forrest Compton is his voice. It carries a compelling quality, both piercing and soothing at the same time. His delivery is so resounding that “when he reads Scripture during mass at the Presbyterian Church,” his wife, Jeanne, joked, “he gets a standing ovation.”

He's retired now, but still does the occasional radio commercial and participates in the Historical Society's “Voices from the Vault” presentations. They allow him to stay near his home on Little Ram Island Drive. “He doesn't want to leave Shelter Island,” said Jeanne.

He started acting in THE EDGE OF NIGHT in 1971, when the show was still broadcast live. “The excitement of it being live really made it special,” said Mr. Compton. “If something went wrong, you just kept going, kept the mouth moving.” The adrenaline involved in being someone else, he said, is part of what drew him to acting.

But perhaps the greatest draw was “to be able to create something outside of myself. The challenge of being real with, sometimes, words that aren't so real.”

Five celebs perfect for guest stints on soaps
Jack Nicholson, Lindsay Lohan (who was already on ANOTHER WORLD), Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep and Robert Pattinson made the list.

EASTENDERS' Peggy will not be killed off
EASTENDERS character Peggy Mitchell will not be killed off when Barbara Windsor leaves the show, according to reports. Windsor recently announced that she was planning to leave the show but no details of her exit storyline have yet been announced.

Gay Activist Marc Harshbarger Speaks OUT
His first novel, "Deep Dish" is a gay soap opera that turns back the clock to 1975 during the disco culture of yesteryear. It tells the swinging saga of the Davenport and Haze families, who fall in and out of love and lust in one cliffhanging chapter after another while searching for happiness in a crazy world. In the sequel, "Deeper Dish" the many colorful characters return for more sordid misadventures, nail-biting cliffhangers, passionate encounters and disco fever as the Dish becomes Deeper.

Today's Soap World Birthdays

Jerry ver Dorn (Clint, ONE LIFE TO LIVE; ex-Ross, GUIDING LIGHT) - 59
Sara Jane Henriques (ex-Tina, ALL MY CHILDREN)

Kevin Spirtas Is Fully "Loaded": The WLS Interview, Part One

Kevin Spirtas is known to soap watchers as the deliciously manipulative Craig Wesley on DAYS OF OUR LIVES [1997-2003] and the evil Jonas Chamberlain on ONE LIFE TO LIVE [2008].  He is currently starring in the Off-Broadway show “Loaded” in New York City, revealing more physically and emotionally to audiences than ever before.  Please read on to learn more about how Kevin approached his role in “Loaded,” as well as reflections on his career on soaps and stage.  

We Love Soaps:  I really enjoyed “Loaded.” What kind of response have you gotten from others so far?
Kevin Spirtas: So far I’ve gotten a very “loaded” response.  I have received emails, posts on my Facebook page, and so has my co-star Scott Kerns.  People also come up to us after the show.  They are very moved, they feel pushed, and they are very intrigued by the content of the piece.  There is a lot here.  They are listening to the struggle, to the generational divide between two individuals separated in age.  Because of that, it brings up a lot of stuff.  It’s causing them to go away from [the show] and continue with that conversation.  They ask, “Do I see myself up there?  Who do I know like that?”  It’s very interesting.  The piece focuses on these two men who each have struggles in their own life.  My character [“Patrick”] feels very comfortable in the bedroom.  He’s comfortable with this younger character [“Jude”] in bed but he also wants more.  I think both want more but they just don’t know how to come to a common ground as common as under the sheets. 

We Love Soaps: What are you hoping will come from people seeing “Loaded”? Do you hope they will communicate more with their partners?  Or think more about what they’re doing before they do it?  What do you want people to take away from this?
Kevin Spirtas: All of that.  I can’t go into a play or a part or a role without thinking, “What do I take away from it?” I have a lot of similarities to this characters on some level.  And what I don’t have similar with him I have enough in my life to associate the disappointment, the suffering, the loss.

We Love Soaps: Are those ways you are similar to Patrick?
Kevin Spirtas: Yes.  In all these ways.  I’m playing a 47-year-old character, and I’m forty-seven.  The AIDS epidemic was right there at the beginning of my career on Broadway.  So I saw all these people die.  And Patrick has lost all these people in his life.  There’s all these commonalities.  In any relationship, gay or straight, you have the need to communicate. And where do you take the middle ground to accommodate the other person or to understand the other person’s view point?   Every role one can take on is a way to heal something.  There’s got to be a reason that we do this.  I have to find some arc, some sort of way to heal myself.  Maybe through that Patrick gets healed.  Or maybe Patrick learns something, or takes something on.

Continue reading...

News Round-up: Broderick, Park, Oprah, Ripa, Palu

Kelly Ripa's behind-the-scenes lust
"Mark [Consuelos] had been fairly low-key, quiet and humble as he learned the ropes and hoped he'd eventually be upgraded to full contract status," writes makeup artist Norman Bryn in his new book, "Makeup & Misery: Adventures in the Soap Factory." Bryn recalls Consuelos as "a nice, unpretentious guy."

"A number of hunky guys were brought in to read with Kelly -- a passionate scene to test the romantic potential of each . . . I applied Mark's makeup, and that of some of the other men, also . . . I didn't go out of my way to make any of the competition particularly striking . . . I wanted to give him whatever advantage I could."

It turned out Consuelos had a bigger edge than anyone knew.

"Mark's real advantage was Kelly . . . She had no trouble calling up genuine lust to steam up the screen and blow the other contestants out of the bed sheets," said Bryn. "Many of the crew marveled at how 'realistic' the scene was, unaware Kelly and Mark had rehearsed outside the studio quite a few times already!"

Lorraine Broderick in at ALL MY CHILDREN for Transition
DC's Jamey Giddens is reporting that former ALL MY CHILDREN head writer Lorraine Broderick has been tapped to head write the soap at least for the foreseeable future.

ATWT/GOTHAM star Michael Park is a product of community theater
“I am a product of community theater, and I say it proudly,” said Michael Park, who was celebrity chairman of this year’s TANYS Festival.

“Some people have used community theater to get to the next level,” he said, “but so many of the people in community theater work regular 9-to-5-jobs, rehearse two or three times a week, at least, and you do it for what, a show that runs two weekends? That shows dedication, passion.”

OPRAH ratings decline not that different than daytime soaps
In 1991-92, ratings for the show averaged 12.6 million viewers, double the 6.2 million who collectively tuned in from 2008-09.

Missed some of your soap? Palu has a musical recap
Paul Beckman, a.k.a. Palu Rainbow Song of Salt Spring Island, a ferry ride over from Vancouver and Victoria, watches soap operas daily and uses them as inspiration for songs. He then posts the videos online.

The Week in Review: Most Popular Posts

In case you missed them, here are the 15 most popular topics over the past week at We Love Soaps:

- VENICE Season One Teaser, Premiere Date December 4
- Vanishing VENICE?
- Day of DAYS: Crystal Chappell
- WLS Review: "Loaded"
- INDIE SOAP BEAT: November 18, 2009
- Soap's Hope: The Claire Labine Interview, Part Six
- The Wesley Eure Interview, Part Two
- DAYS OF OUR LIVES Cast: The Dance Off
- The Adam Mayfield Interview, Part Two
- Day of DAYS: Suzanne Rogers & Molly Burnett
- Darius McCrary Cast as Malcolm on Y&R
- News Round-up: The James Franco Edition
- Dennis Cole Has Passed At Age 69
- ATWT's Michael Park Talks Jack/Carly Reunion
- The Adam Mayfield Interview, Part Three

If you missed this week's episode of WE LOVE SOAPS TV, you can watch it below. Former Soap Opera Weekly editor Tony Calega co-hosted and we dished the latest hot topics from around the soap world. We also had interviews with DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Joseph Mascolo, Lauren Koslow, Bryan Dattilo and more.

INDIE SOAP BEAT Extra: PALISADES POOL PARTY

PALISADES POOL PARTY explores the world of teens living in the affluent beach community of the Pacific Palisades utilizing a unique brand of storytelling. It’s been described as THE O.C. meets 24. The drama one comes to expect over the course of multiple seasons on teen shows like ONE TREE HILL, GOSSIP GIRL and 90210 plays out in a mere twenty-four hours leading up to and during the soon-to-be legendary pool party.

“For as much as teens use the Internet as a source of entertainment, we felt there was a real lack of teen programming,” says director and co-creator, Jack Monroe. “And certainly in the serialized drama department; I can’t think of any other web series doing what we’re doing. There are user-generated teen shows, but they are mostly comedies and often lack production value.”

If you haven't watched yet, you can check out the first three episodes here.

Continue reading...

Today's Soap World Birthdays

Winsor Harmon (Thorne, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL; ex-Del, ALL MY CHILDREN) - 46

Harmon was born on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.