On Saturday, June 8, ONE LIFE TO LIVE’s Hillary B. Smith (Nora) and Catherine Hickland (Lindsay) were at it again. No, their characters weren’t clawing each other’s eyes out on the set of their soap opera. Instead, they were trading barbs live on stage at Brokerage Entertainment in Bellmore, NY, at the debut of their comedy show, Girls Night Out.
"It wasn’t an appearance as Nora and Lindsay. It’s really nothing to do with that," says Smith (Nora), who, with Hickland, donated all of the proceeds to North Shore Animal League. "We set the stage on how we met and our careers. It’s more about the fact that we’re women who have husbands, careers, businesses and children — Cat’s are four-legged, and mine are two-legged and four-legged — and what happens when you’re a woman juggling all of that."
Two Lives To Live
How was Girls Night Out born? "Well, Cat and I have been archenemies on the show for five years," explains Smith. "But we’re really great friends off screen, which shocks audiences. We find ourselves terribly amusing — usually around two or three o’clock in the morning when we’re trying to do scenes and we’re in hysterics. Because we think we’re so funny, we hope that other people will find us amusing, too.
"We became fast and furious friends when our stories really starting interlocking," she continues. "We’d work really late hours and she’d bring me back to stay with her and her husband [Michael E. Knight, Tad, ALL MY CHILDREN) because she couldn’t bear the fact that I’d sleep in my dressing room. It was at that point that our lives became interchangeable. It was so funny.
"Her marriage became my marriage, and my marriage became her marriage," she says with a laugh. "My kids became her kids and her [animals] became mine. Our lives just meshed, and yet we’re such different people. That’s what’s so amusing. So this show is just our viewpoints about being a woman over 40, which we find terribly hysterical!"
If you missed their first performance, don’t worry, Smith says it wasn’t their last! Log on to www.acoupleofsoapchicks.com for more information. — Irene Vitale
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