A Chance to Blaze a Trail in Daytime’s Territory

Eden Riegel doesn’t play baseball, but she can handle a curveball. The 20-year-old Riegel learned last summer that she’d be carrying one of the weightiest story lines in daytime television--the role of Erica Kane’s gay teenage daughter on ABC’s “All My Children,” who was poised to come out of the closet.

But Riegel didn’t know the path the character was to take until after she’d gone through the rigorous audition process and landed the role. The network and the soap’s executive said they were trying to keep the tightest possible lid on the story line, which was conceived by “All My Children’s” creator and daytime drama legend, Agnes Nixon.

When Riegel shook off the initial shock, a tidal wave of emotions and concerns hit her, she said. She worried briefly about being typecast so early in her career, but then pushed that aside as she considered how many other actors are playing gay characters on TV and in films, and being praised, not punished, for it.

She also knew that becoming Bianca Montgomery, a central character, would mean taking a significant break from college; she’s a political and social theory student at Harvard. But foremost was her concern for how the 16-year-old character would be portrayed. In the initial meetings she had with the soap opera’s creative team, she asked about more than just Bianca’s angst-filled coming-out scenes.

“I wanted to know the character would be three-dimensional,” Riegel said. “I didn’t want her to be defined just by her sexuality. She had to be more than ‘the gay character.’ The story line had to be sensitive and intelligent and accessible.”

Armed with assurances, Riegel immersed herself in the role. After nearly six months of agonizing, Riegel’s character came out to her on-screen mother, played by Emmy-winner and daytime doyenne Susan Lucci, in late December. It was the emotionally charged scenes that followed--in which everything from hate crimes to “de-programming” therapy has been discussed--that Riegel knew she would relish.

“There’s so much heavy drama,” she said. “It’s wrenching, but it’s an amazing opportunity.”

Lucci, around whom Emmy buzz has already started to swirl for this story line, said it was vital to find the right young actor.

“It’s a very demanding role, and a lot has been asked of Eden,” Lucci said. “She’s a thoughtful, sensitive person, and she brings a lot to the table. In a short time, I’ve built up a great deal of faith and trust in her.”

More than 500 people auditioned for the part, which has been played by various young actresses over the years as the character “aged.” Judy Blye Wilson, the show’s casting director, said Riegel’s chemistry with Lucci came across immediately, as did her maturity.

“She’s very smart and very focused,” Blye Wilson said. “A lot of actors in this age range haven’t found themselves yet. But Eden is so centered. At the same time, there’s such a great vulnerability about her. The combination is what sets her worlds apart.”

Though Riegel has never been through such events herself--she’s straight--she said she drew from experiences of gay friends and acquaintances who have come out to their parents. She also culled feelings from her own recently concluded teen years.

“Everybody goes through the same thing when they’re a teenager, and this is mirroring a real teen,” she said. “You always think, ‘Do my parents love me unconditionally? Will they abandon me? Do they understand me?’ Yes, Bianca’s gay, but it’s not that much of a stretch.”

The soap magazines and chat rooms have been abuzz for months about the story line, with positive and negative reaction, though tilted a little more toward acceptance. (Word of Bianca’s coming out first leaked in Michael Musto’s column in the Village Voice shortly after Riegel joined the show.)

ABC executives credit the story with spikes in ratings: For episodes that centered on Bianca spilling her “secret,” numbers of viewers in the key women 18-49 demographic have increased 10% to 13% over the weekly average. The soap has been the top ratings draw among network daytime shows for the past two weeks running, and network brass thinks the story is broadening the audience beyond the hard-core soap fan.

The volume of letters and e-mails has jumped 10% each month since the story began percolating; more than half the viewers say they support the Bianca story line, while about 20% say they hate it, with the rest having mixed feelings, according to the show’s producers.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation recently nominated “All My Children” for a media award for the Bianca story; because there were no other nods in the “outstanding daytime drama” category, the show will receive the award in late April.

“It’s been so credible, when there are many, many things that could’ve been done to make it a complete disaster,” said Scott Seomin, GLAAD’s entertainment media director. “It’s educational, it’s realistic, and it’s high-profile. Erica Kane will always have a daughter, and her daughter will always be a lesbian.”

Seomin met with ABC executives about the story, looking for assurances that the character wouldn’t be here today, gone tomorrow, and that she would experience the same soap-style joys and heartaches as anyone on the show. Without giving away future plots, they put his mind at ease, he said.

Both Riegel and Lucci said they have had letters and e-mails, mostly positive, from fans about the Bianca story line. Lucci said she’s reminded of how important the story arc is when she hears reports of hate crimes and teens committing suicide rather than coming out.

“It’s a story about a mother and daughter, but in the broader sense, it’s a story about prejudice,” Lucci said. “If we can play any part in breaking that down, it’s more than worthwhile.”

Still to be determined is how far the show will go in portraying Bianca’s love life, or in showing negative reaction to her coming out. So far, characters on the show have been wholly supportive. (“Pine Valley’s so PC!” Riegel chuckled.)

The daytime TV world of pregnant pauses and quivering bottom lips might seem a million miles from the stage, where Riegel cut her teeth, starting at age 7, in such shows as “Les Miserables” and “The Will Rogers Follies.” But she says they aren’t so far apart.

“My friends at school get a kick out of me being in a soap. But to me, it’s the quality of the work,” she said. “I’m learning just as much, maybe more, than I did in theater. It’s pretty intense.”

It’s five days a week, acting nearly in real time, with a chance to burrow deeply into a character, all the while being supplied with new material for each outing. As she puts it, “It’s a play a day.”

Aside from theater, Riegel has been on both the small and big screens, with roles in the now-defunct Fox cop show “New York Undercover” and Universal’s teen romp “American Pie.” She just finished an indie film that’s in post-production.

The Washington, D.C., native, who’s been a Manhattanite for more than a dozen years, likes the idea, sometime in the future, of creating a one-stop movie-making shop with her writer-producer brother, Sam, and her film editor sister, Tatiana. Getting her degree is a must, though she’s not sure when she’ll go back to school. She had thought about law school, but those plans are up in the air.

“I’m allowing myself to realize how much I love acting,” she said. “I’ll see where this takes me.”

* “All My Children” can be seen weekdays at noon on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).