Beloved stars from All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital will reunite for ABC Daytime: Back on Broadway, a one-night-only streaming concert benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The free streamed event can be viewed on the Broadway Cares website beginning at 8 pm Eastern on Thursday, February 11.
Additionally, the event can be seen on Broadway Cares’ YouTube Channel, ABC-owned television stations’ 32 connected TV apps on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku and each of the eight stations’ websites around the country, including abc7ny.com and Good Morning America’s Facebook page..
PhotoL ABC
The star-studded lineup will include performances by All My Children’s Bobbie Eakes, Melissa Claire Egan, Vincent Irizarry, Eva La Rue, Susan Lucci, Cameron Mathison, Eden Riegel, Chrishell Stause and Walt Willey, One Life to Live’s Kristen Alderson, BethAnn Fuenmayor, Kathy Brier, Kassie DePaiva, David Gregory, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Catherine Hickland, Mark Lawson, Hillary B. Smith, Jason Tam and Brittany Underwood; and General Hospital’s Bradford Anderson, Brandon Barash and Anthony Geary..
For the February 11 streaming special, viewers can expect to hear a bevy of Broadway classics and jazzy standards. The streaming event will be directed by John Dietrich, who also directed each of the live stage performances.
Dedicated fans also will have the opportunity for one-on-one virtual meet-and-greets with their favorite soap stars on Saturday, February 13. Further information on tickets and the lineup of special guests will be announced later this month.
From 2005-2011, the stars of ABC Daytime took the stage at New York City’s Town Hall one night each year for ABC Daytime Salutes Broadway Cares. The evening featured dynamic production numbers, heartfelt ballads and hilarious skits. Now, 10 years after that final performance, the iconic ABC Daytime actors revisit their performances as they help raise money for those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the event began in 2005. it was for a one-night benefit concert to celebrate All My Children’s 35th Anniversary. With overwhelming support from fans, the event continued for six more years and included cast members from One Life to Live, General Hospital and co-hosts of The View. Over its seven-year run, ABC Daytime Salutes Broadway Cares raised an incredible $1.85 million.
“This event is truly one of a kind,” Broadway Cares Executive Director Tom Viola said. “We are so thankful to the stars from ABC Daytime for joining us again as we relive moments from this delightful tradition, while helping to provide lifesaving medication, healthy meals and emergency support to those struggling during this ongoing pandemic.”
“It was such an incredible privilege and joy to join my fellow co-stars to perform in the seven ABC Daytime Salutes concerts to benefit Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS,” said former All My Children star Susan Lucci. “There are no fans like ABC Daytime fans. Their love and support continue to astonish us. We can’t wait to share these special performances with them and help raise money for so many in need during this difficult time.”
Lucci also shared her excitement on her Instagram account expressing: “We’re getting the fans and cast back together!!! Join us on Thursday, February 11 at 8pm for “ABC Daytime: Back on Broadway”—a fabulous online event revisiting seven years of singing, dancing and plot twists, featuring your favorite ABC Daytime stars. And it’s all to help Broadway Cares support our friends and neighbors who are struggling during this pandemic. Watch the stream at
broadway-cares.org, to join the fun! I hope to see you there!”
So excited to hear about the ABC Daytime Back to Broadway event? Let us know in the comment section, and check out the announcement from The View’s Whoopi Goldberg below.
BREAKING! Queen of @theview @WhoopiGoldberg announces ABC Daytime: Back on #Broadway will stream on February 11. Theatre and Soap fans alike are sure to swoon over performances of Broadway hits and parodies by @Susan_Lucci and stars from AMC, OLTL, and GH. https://t.co/Nxa3X2oJcx
— Broadway Cares (@BCEFA) January 14, 2021
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how about people who claim want to help daytime, but are really ruining it?
I’ve thought for a few years that one network was intentionally writing their soaps to drive down the numbers of viewers. A major leading character spends years in an upright comatose state. She would sit motionless while her ‘daughter’ would comb her long hair. The character was portrayed as a weak helpless woman for years. The characters daughter grew up off camera supposedly raised by her grandmother. The soap couple had been loving and great parents a decade earlier…dream parents. The network ended it with just a toss away story. No real storyline. Just a few basic lines to write… Read more »
I think it hasnt helped OUR soaps writing things PEOPLE just couldnt buy.
Twins, characters coming back from the dead and or just storylines shoved down our throats. Bring in characters that DONT belong.
Characters leaving, that meant the end of True Love , for example; Brandon Buddy
leaving his role of Cole. Pairing Starr with another leaving Sole to just die.
Actors come and go but THAT was crushing.
I stopped watching even before Buddy left.
The Natalie & John story ruined by a stupid one night stand with Brody.
think you are on the right track with this comment Jan…. prime time soaps don’t write this way anymore…… we are not stuck in the 80’s are we ……and I think TPTB have forgotten that today’s viewer is NOT the same kind of viewer that our mother’s were….our attention span is much shorter I think…..even as we may want to escape for an hour in our favorite show…dreaming of love in the afternoon….we are an intelligent viewer…not mindless…and I think some of this is not throughly planned….thought through…storylines arcing to make sense…or too many dropped storylines….why is that …is that… Read more »
Soaps in the era of reality TV… it’s all about shock and sensationalism. The stories on daytime television were once apparently really thought out and fine tuned, where a few months in advance you would see foreshadowing of what was to come (i.e. The Left Handed Boy). Now there is no intricate, fine tuned, build up of story. Pretty much they are writing 2 hour movies of the week (if that), where the whole cast of characters change to support the plot de jour. There is no character consistency. Their whole personality, moral code, cognitive functioning can change on a… Read more »
daytime executives who neither like nor understand the genre…..and dont listen to the viewers who do
The OJ Simpson Trial (which could be combined with the “reality TV” group). There is probably a direct correlation between the trial and the dwindling number of viewers. Watching that trial for weeks and weeks gave people a taste of “reality” TV and that was it. I don’t think the numbers ever recovered.
I agree 100% with SUS, it’s the writing that killed the soaps. Watch the old Ryan’s Hope on SoapNet if you want to see what was so great about the soaps in the old days. The “story arc” is a thing of the past – slow build-up to a satisfying pay-off. Doug Marland was a master of it (ATWT). Nowadays, there simply is no pay-off. If the villian in a story is “popular”, doesn’t matter how atrocious or vicious their crimes are (I’m specifically thinking of Adam on Y&R, but there are many others), the original story goes out the… Read more »
Clunky plots and stunts instead of character driven storylines. The reason The Bold and the Beautiful is seeing a ratings decline is this very reason. I find the Brooke/Thomas storyline completely unbelievable and ludicrous. One Life to Live is an excellent example of character driven storylines, utilizing the old timers and newcomers equally. Unfortunately just as I got attached to it, they cancel it. How many soaps, hell any television series, can claim the surge in ratings and quality that this show has shown recently? Not a one.
1. How ratings are compiled (don’t understand why it doesn’t count if you watch more than 3 days later)
2. Having daytime executives who lack the ability, or desire, to think outside the box
3. The writing. The writing. The writing. Watching any vintage episode shows that in spades.
I think what really killed the soaps was the poorly written shows. If the shows had been written better fans would still watch but since they’re not people who were once faithful watcher’s have moved on to other things. There are way too many other things for people to do with their time, You’ve got tons of cable stations along with On Demand that allow you to watch what you want on your schedule and then there’s the internet that allows us to interact socially with others on FB, Twitter etc . and play online games through game systems. I… Read more »
I’m sorry but I get annoyed when I see people blame reality tv. I don’t know many people who actually watch reality tv in the day. It would be easier to just say cable television because it encompasses everything. I am more likely to watch reruns than reality tv. But I am also more likely to surf the web than watch tv like most people my age (20s).