On Sept. 17, after 54 years of backstabbing, bitchery and tune-in-tomorrows, “As the World Turns” followed its sister soap “Guiding Light” into an ever-expanding universe of defunct daytime melodrama. In 1990 an average daily soap viewership of 6.5 million could choose among 12 network serials. Today, according to a recent report in Advertising Age, average viewership hovers well below 1.5 million, with six soaps left on the air. When production at the “As the World Turns” studio in Brooklyn halted in June, New York was left with only one soap — “One Life to Live,” on ABC — and hundreds of actors plotting their next real-life story lines.

“It’s the loss of a creative environment as much as a loss of paychecks,” said Trent Dawson, whose hapless, occasionally cross-dressing Henry Coleman gave “As the World Turns” some comic relief and the actor a schedule that allowed him to moonlight at the Baltimore Centerstage theater. Mr. Dawson, 39, is currently appearing in Vaclav Havel’s “Memorandum” at the Beckett Theater, Off Broadway.

Since 1949, when the DuMont network first broadcast the 15-minute daytime serial “A Woman to Remember” from the small basement studio of Wanamaker’s department store in Manhattan, generations of New York actors found in soaps a combination of training, money and camaraderie that isn’t likely to be replaced. In addition to dozens of regular cast members, “As the World Turns” hired as many as 50 extras and day players per week, said Christopher Goutman, the last executive producer of the show.

New York, he said, “will have a lot more actors waiting tables.”