Prospect Park

“One Life to Live” fans have reason to celebrate today as a handful of the show’s current cast members, including six-time Daytime Emmy winner Erika Slezak (Viki) have already agreed to make the transition with the show from ABC to online-only distribution with Prospect Park. According to Deadline Hollywood the company, which leased the rights to “OLTL” and sister soap “All My Children” in July, Slezak, along with Kassie DePaiva (Blair), Michael Easton (John), and Ted King (Tomas) will all be remaining with the show after it airs its final ABC episode early next year.

Moments before the announcement that production company Prospect Part had licensed “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” from ABC and saved it from imminent cancellation, it was announced that Debbi Morgan (Angie) had already signed on to “The Young and the Restless.” She will debut on the popular CBS soap this fall. Not too long after that, Jacob Young (JR) announced that he was unable to ignore the call back to “The Bold and the Beautiful.” He returns as Rick Forrester on Monday, September 26. At this moment, Prospect Park is still trying to work out a deal with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) that will allow them to begin negotiating with actors for a hopeful January 2012 relaunch of both ABC soaps. This leaves the actors of “AMC” with free time and a contract with ABC that dissolved earlier this week. In the September 13, 2011 issues of Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly, it is revealed that Alicia Minshew and Chrishell Stause have also both been contacted to join another soap.

As previously reported, with “All My Children” wrapping production in less than a week, actress Debbi Morgan (Dr. Angela Hubbard) will be heading to CBS’ “The Young and the Restless.” Although her “Y&R” role has not been revealed, a CBS representative has confirmed to Soap Opera Network that Morgan will begin taping scenes beginning Thursday, September 1, which is just one day after her contract with the ABC Television Network is set to expire.

Last Friday, I had stated on my personal Twitter account that I had been hearing reports that “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” might be heading to Bravo as a part of a cable deal with Prospect Park, which is reportedly looking for a cable network to supplement costs for its online network debuting in January 2012. Although it’s taken longer than expected to get an official response from Bravo, a spokesperson has stated that “these are all just rumors.”

It is full steam ahead behind-the-scenes of “One Life to Live” this week as the show works overtime to film their necessary quota of episodes before taking some time off before wrapping production on the shows TV run later this fall.

Susan Lucci has taken to Twitter by announcing that she is heading into her final week of taping at ABC’s “All My Children,” although she doesn’t make it clear whether or not she will be moving on to the Prospect Park version of the soap when it debuts in January 2012.

Julia Barr will bring Brooke English back to Pine Valley on Friday, September 16, which means, if the soap can take a break from exploring Dr. David Hayward’s (Vincent Irizarry) God complex in-depth, Barr will air in six episodes at the most before “All My Children” airs its series finale on ABC on Friday, September 23.

Monday, September 5, 2011 will mark the final Labor Day repeat airing of ABC’s canceled daytime dramas “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” and likely the second to last time “General Hospital” will air one during its current 3:00 PM ET/2:00 PM PT timeslot as Katie Couric takes over “GH’s” slot beginning in September 2012.

“One Life to Live” star Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer) had many fans in attendance at last weekends “One Life to Live” Fan Club Weekend Luncheon scratching their heads when she said “I was told by our executive producer [Frank Valentini] yesterday, that on Wednesday [August 10] we tied with ‘Y&R.'” Considering “The Young and the Restless” is daytime’s #1 soap, we thought she may have made a mistake too, but it turns out she wasn’t wrong at all.

With today’s news that Prospect Park has officially begun making offers to actors in hopes of them joining “All My Children” 2.0 in time for its January 2012 debut, it’s only fitting to get an insiders perspective on the innerworkings of a canceled soap opera. Cameron Mathison, who portrays the role of Ryan Lavery on the soap, spoke with Soap Opera Network during the “All My Children” Fan Club Weekend and he shed some light on Prospect Park, being a contributor on “Good Morning America” and even dancing on “Dancing with the Stars.”