Daytime vet Brian Gaskill recently held an event for a good cause.  This past May, he was named the director of Garden State Players’ (a non-profit theater company in New Jersey) inaugural summer theater camp.  Celebrating his new spoken word poetry album, Make It Real, Gaskill held an intimate reading at Keyport’s luxe Trinty Resturant, a staple of the quaint Bayshore town.  Proceeds from this night of poetry went to help fund the company’s production of  Footloose.  The musical’s profits will then go towards benefitting a local children’s hospital.  
 
I chatted with the Models, Inc., All My Children, Port Charles, Guiding Light, As The World Turns and The Bold and the Beautiful alum before he took the stage to perform the material in front of an audience for the first time. Gaskill shared the details of his new gig, as well as what he thinks about the current state of television, and the fan efforts to resurrect daytime soaps.
 
Daytime Confidential:  How did you become involved with Garden State Players?
 
Brian Gaskill:  Lauren [Raad], who runs it, is somebody I went to high school with.  She was actually a freshman when I was a senior at the performing arts school at Red Bank. I had started posting stuff on Facebook of these pamphlets that I made up in trying to pursue teaching.  ‘Cause I’ve done it at Red Bank Regional, and other places; I’ve had other workshops at places. When she saw this thing in this organized fashion, and I started to put it up there, she said, “Hey why don’t you come back home to New Jersey and teach for the summer?  We want to start a school for the theater company,” and I was just excited about it.  I wasn’t sure I was going to come at first, but then I decided that [I could] continue [to] do what I’m doing, and could pursue my career, but also broaden my life.  In the sense that when I’m waiting for other jobs, I don’t want to be a waiter, who’s you know, it’s okay to do that, but I’m 42 and I have other things to offer the world, and I love working with kids. I just always wanted to make it [teaching] a part of my life.  Even when I just did it—showing up and helping places, being there for kids, especially for high school—it is something that I’ve always been drawn to.  So, it’s just being part of an artistic community, and starting with her company at the ground floor and helping build it up to do more.  Right now they’re doing Footloose, but then in the future to do more original productions, and make it a real theater company, and help be a part of it. 
 
DC:  You grew up around here, right?
 
BG:  I did.  I grew up in Neptune and Ocean Grove, and I was bussed to Red Bank.  READ MORE

Former All My Children star Ambyr Childers (ex-Colby Chandler) has a new gig. According to The Hollywood Reporter she has signed on to Showtime’s pilot Ray Donovan. The show also cast Kerris Dorsey and Johnathon Schaech in the drama, starring Liev Schreiber.

In the family drama about a professional "fixer" for the rich and famous in Los Angeles -- the title character to be played by Salt's Schreiber -- Schaech (That Thing You Do) will play Sean Stevens, a major movie star with a mysterious connection to Ray's past. Dorsey (Brothers & Sisters, Moneyball) will play Ray'd daughter, Bridget, while Childers (All My Children) will play Ashley Rucker, a young star under Ray's protection.

Showtime’s fantastic dramedy Shameless returns on January 8 for its second season, and we can’t wait to see how  Fiona Gallagher juggles her crazy family this time around. However, before Emmy Rossum landed the role of Fiona, her first SAG  gig was on As the World Turns as Abigail Williams.  Included in a profile of SAG lead actress contenders by The Hollywood Reporter, Rossum remembers her ATWT audition:

My First SAG Job: On As the World Turns. I played Holden and Molly's daughter Abigail. I desperately wanted the part. I was 11 and had been studying X and Y chromosomes, dominant genes and recessive genes. I watched the show the day before my audition and realized the two actors who played the parents both had blue eyes. I had just learned in school that two blue-eyed parents can't have a brown-eyed child. So I went into the audition and said if they wanted me, I would go get contact lenses to have blue eyes. They cast me and said, "Make sure she brings her contacts."

RELATED:  SCOOP: Harry Hamlin to Play "New Friend" For Ian on Shameless! READ MORE

ABC Soaps In Depth is reporting General Hospital alum Brianna Brown will star on Showtime's new series Homeland, alongside Claire Danes. Brown will play former mid-west beauty queen Lynne Reed, who becomes a Saudi Arabian prince's "lady of the evening" and CIA agent. Brown makes her two-episode debut starting Oct. 9 at 10 PM EST.

If it’s Monday night, it’s time to watch The Big C and Weeds on Showtime, but on August 1st we have an even better reason to watch The Big C. According to Soaps in Depth, former One Life to Live star Brittany Underwood (ex-Langston) will appear on The Big C as Greta, “a member of the swim team coached by Linney's character, Cathy.” Set your DVR!

Weeds and The Big C return to Showtime–where the best cable comedies call home–on June 27. Before you dive into an On-Demad marathon to get ready for their return, might I suggest you brush up on one of the funniest series on the web, Then We Got Help!. Each and every episode of Then We Got Help! gives such TV series a run for their money.

On this week’s “A Kiss is Just a Kiss” Part 2, Marcia DeBonis (The Big C and Letters to Juliet) returns as the hilarious couples counselor in training, Sharon. The group pounces when she accidently reveals information about her personal life. Dan (Nicholas Rodriguez) and Eric (Blake Hammond) are emotional as they reveal to the group what has happened with their adoption. 

Check out a Then We Got Help! marathon of recent episodes after the jump. READ MORE