New Jersey Peace Action is hosting its 53rd annual Soup Luncheon on Saturday, Nov. 20 from 11:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Bloomfield High School, 160 Broad St. The event is intended to celebrate the strength of grassroots efforts to bring about peace and social and economic justice with a presentation of readings from: "Voices of a People's History of the United States: A Tribute to Howard Zinn."

Dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches in "Voices of a People's History of the United States" are intended to focus on the concept of democracy based on the lives and experiences of ordinary Americans who, through their words and actions, changed history.

One of the readers, Bloomfield resident Peter Parros, has over 20 years of experience as a professional actor and writer.

Television actor Frank Runyeon spent decades on the small screen as a familiar face on popular daytime and prime time series.

He is best known for his seven years as Steve Andropoulos on the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns" opposite actress Meg Ryan, who became his TV wife in 1984. He also spent four years as Father Michael Donnelly on the Emmy Award winning "Santa Barbara," before appearing for a season as tycoon Simon Romero on ABC's "General Hospital" opposite actress Emma Samms.

(Having also played roles as a priest) His "holy roles" were never much of a performance stretch, since he had always wanted to join the seminary to become a Roman Catholic priest.

But his love of the arts and performing was an equally strong life emphasis, despite the challenges he says actors and actresses face in Hollywood, a place where compromised values and morals make the business difficult.

This topic is one of the subjects Runyeon now travels the country discussing with his popular one-man show called "Hollywood vs. Faith."

Read the entire article at nwitimes.com.

More information on Frank's current work at FrankRunyeon.com.

Soap star and stage veteran Austin Peck and Miss New York Claire Buffie will be among the special guest stars at the 100trh performance of Anthony Wilkinson's My Big Gay Italian Wedding, playing at St. Luke's Theatre, on Thursday, November 18.  Following the performance on the 18th, the show will host a reception for theatergoers with Moretti, Peck, Buffie and other members of the company.

Peck is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Brad Snyder on CBS' As The World Turns. In addition, he played Austin Reed on the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives. He was recently seen off-Broadway in The Irish Curse

My Big Gay Italian Wedding focuses on two gay men as they plan their wedding and the people around them, including an overbearing Italian mother, a jealous ex-boyfriend, the wedding planner from Hell, and an assortment of family and friends.

Source: Theatermania

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.”

Atlantic Theater Company's double bill branded as The Collection & A Kind of Alaska: Two Plays by Harold Pinter, begins Off-Broadway Nov. 3, marking the troupe's return to a favorite author. Two-time Tony Award nominee Larry Bryggman is among the players.

Larry Bryggman (John Dixon of TV's now-canceled "As the World Turns") returns to Atlantic following appearing in Tom Donaghy's world premiere adaptation of The Cherry Orchard and the world premiere of David Mamet's comedy Romance. Emery returns to Atlantic following starring in the American premiere of Moira Buffini's Gabriel. Henderson was most recently seen Off-Broadway in Sheila Callaghan's Roadkill Confidential. McGrath starred in the musical The Black Rider at Center Theater Group's Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles, the Barbican Theatre in London, San Francisco's ACT and in Sydney, Australia; and also starred on Broadway in Cabaret as the M.C. Pettie has appeared at Atlantic in Hobson's Choice on Broadway in Butley and Off-Broadway in This and in Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams.

Read the entire article at Playbill.

After an extensive search, Alexandra Chando (Rockville CA) has landed the lead in the ABC Family drama pilot The Lying Game. Additionally. The Lying Game, from Warner Horizon and Alloy, centers on Emma (Chando), a kind-hearted foster kid who finds out she has an identical twin sister, Sutton (also played by Chando) that was adopted by wealthy parents and is seemingly living an ideal life until she goes missing and Emma goes on a quest to find her. Charles Pratt, Jr. is the writer/executive producer on the pilot based on the upcoming novel by Pretty Little Liars author Sara Shepard.

Source: Deadline.com

In The Memorandum, billed as a look at "bureaucracy gone mad," the managing director of an organization discovers that all office communications are suddenly being written in "Ptydepe," a new and impossibly complicated language. He seeks to get a memo translated, taking him through a maddening riot of red tape. The play is said to be inspired by the absurdities of life in communist Eastern Europe.

The cast of The Memorandum includes TACT members Mark Alhadeff (The Cocktail Party, Incident at Vichy), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (Incident at Vichy, The Confidential Clerk), John Plumpis (The Lion King, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), James Prendergast (Incident at Vichy, The Late Christopher Bean), Lynn Wright (The Elephant Man, As Bees in Honey Drown) and guest artists Nilanjana Bose (TACT debut, 2010 Juilliard graduate), Trent Dawson (TACT debut, "As the World Turns"), Joel Leffert (Freudian Slips) and Kate Levy (On Golden Pond, Well).

Read the entire article at Playbill

More information about this and what else Trent has been involved with can be found at trentdawson.com