-- EMPIRE's new director, Daytime TV veteran, Fritz Brekeller
Two Time Indie Soap Award Winner Comes To The Hamptons
Daytime Veterans Lauren B. Martin and Fritz Brekeller Join Team Empire
MANHATTAN, NY—The popular Indie Soap Award winning online sudser, EMPIRE add Lauren B Martin to their cast and Fritz Brekeller as their new director. EMPIRE is set to resume shooting on location in the Hamptons at the end of March 2012.
At the helm of the location shoot in the Hamptons will be Empire’s new director Fritz Brekeller. Brekeller is excited to join the new frontier of independent soap operas after having a distinguished career working on New York produced soap operas including ABC’s ALL MY CHILDREN, ONE LIFE TO LIVE, and THE CITY, CBS’s AS THE WORLD TURNS and GUIDING LIGHT, and NBC’s ANOTHER WORLD. Brekeller has received several Emmy and DGA nominations throughout his extensive daytime career.
“I am thrilled to lend my twenty years of experience to the terrific EMPIR team and work with its wonderful cast as well as having the chance to collaborate with creator/writers Greg Turner and Brian Hewson,” Brekeller says. “Their passion and daring have created an exciting and fresh series and together we will be raising the bar for the upcoming fourth season and will continue to do so for many seasons to come."
In addition to his work in daytime television, Brekeller recently assisted director Steven Williford and served as B Unit Director on the indie feature The Green which stars Jason Butler Harner, Cheyenne Jackson, Illeana Douglas and Julia Ormond. From 2003 to 2008, he was a Field Producer for SOAPnet’s Daytime Emmy Red Carpet show. For the Internet, he has produced and directed the web series Suzy and Duddy and NY2 with Margo Rose Ferderer, and acted as First Assistant Director and Associate Producer on the web soap, GOTHAM, starring two time Emmy Award winners Martha Byrne and Michael Park.
In addition to the soap stars who have already joined EMPIRE, the producers are announcing the addition of popular soap actor Lauren B Martin. Soap fans will remember as Camille Bennett on AS THE WORLD TURNS as well as roles she created on ANOTHER WORLD, ALL MY CHILDREN, and GUIDING LIGHT. Martin joins EMPIRE as no-nonsense Detective Bailey, a character with a long and tangled history with EMPIRE's Haven and Reed families.
Martin was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Daytime Series for her role on AS THE WORLD TURNS and is the Best Actress winner in the Short Film category in the Nosotros American Latino Film Festival for her role in "Beauty." She has voiced roles on Disney’s animated series MY MOM MARRIED A YETTI and F/X’s popular ARCHER. Named by Soap Opera Weekly and Soap Opera Digest one of the 50 most beautiful women in the industry, Lauren is currently directing and starring in the short film You Are Not Special, a project for which she is also recording new music.
The storyline of season four will involve much of the show’s cast including soap opera stars Tina Sloan and Orlagh Cassidy (GUIDING LIGHT) and Yvonne Perry (AS THE WORLD TURNS). Ellen Dolan of AS THE WORLD TURNS is a former resident of the Hamptons, who also joins the cast this season and has been instrumental in bringing the show to the there.
“I know the Hamptons very well and it was just by chance that the writers of the series came up with a deliciously soapy Agatha Christie style storyline for the new season and located it here,” Dolan said. “It’s going to be so much fun!”
Season four of EMPIRE will revolve around a classic style murder mystery and promises heavy doses of romance along the way! Co-Producer Brian Hewson says, “When we started Empire four years ago, there were four network soap operas all with well over 35 years of history shooting in New York. Today, all of them are gone. Everyone working on EMPIRE deeply believes in this genre and wants it to continue to live in New York.”
Empire’s newest season will also feature current DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Molly Burnett, who reprises her guest role of Lisa from last season, this time alongside her former DAYS co-star Mark Hapka. Thousands of Days fans who were waiting to see Burnett and Hapka’s characters reunited were disappointed when Hapka was suddenly written off the show. Fans will be thrilled to see the pair still have the same steamy chemistry when they reunite on Empire.
For more information and to tune in, visit www.empiretheseries.com, facebook.com/empiretheseries, or on twitter at @EmpireTheSeries.
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Congrats To You, Lauren--Yay!
ReplyDeleteBrian :-)