In 1984 I got my start acting by working on the ABC Daytime Drama "General Hospital". I attended a casting session with a friend and well known actor, Don Stroud. Don had only received his sides the morning of the audition and he asked if I would come along and help him read his lines on the way to the Sunset-Gower Studios where General Hospital was taped (it has since moved to ABC Prospect Studios). While Don was auditioning for the casting director, the associate casting director asked me if I was an actor. He told me that I did a very good job reading the lines with Don in the reception area of the casting office. Before you know it, I was working on the show with a recurring role as "Police Cadet/Officer McDonald".
I eventually went on to work on the other soaps "Days of Our Lives", "Santa Barbara", "The Young and the Restless", "The Bold and the Beautiful", and "Port Charles". As it turns out, once an actor gains some experience working on a soap, it becomes much easier to get booked on other soaps. The reason for this is because soap acting requires a different acting technique than film or most primetime television. It is a much more subtle and less animated form of acting. The pace of taping the scenes is also much faster because an entire episode is taped in a single day.
Stunts and complex physical action are fairly rare on soaps because they require lengthy post production work and time-consuming multiple takes. And with soaps now facing very low budgets and tight taping schedules, these types of scenes are not very often done.
The storylines often involve intricate, and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story twists. Crimes such as kidnapping, rape, and even murder may go unpunished if the perpetrator is to be retained in the ongoing story. Today's soaps often tackle issues such as teenage pregnancy, breast cancer, drug/alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and eating disorders. This has been a very good trend for daytime dramas, and I hope it continues.
