Casting awards and other fun things....

Well, this has been a fun week (and it's only Tuesday!). On Sunday, the "Married...with Children" cast reassembled for David Faustino's webseries. It was so great to see everyone in one place, and it felt just like we were "home" again. Great to catch up with Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal, and to visit with Christina Applegate.

When it came time to shoot and Ed's first line as Al Bundy was "God, I hate my life"... it was as if they had never stopped playing their roles. They all picked right back up where they left off over 10 years ago. Ed O'Neill has that Al Bundy delivery that we all know, and it was really funny to hear it come out of his mouth. I think everyone had a really great time, and it was wonderful to see Steve Ritt, the dog trainer - who brought a dog that looked just like "Buck" the dog. He told us that he had to use spray-on hair color to get the dog to look like the old Buck.

Last night were the Artios awards, where the Casting Society gives out awards to it's own. I was nominated, along with my casting partner Jason Wood, for our work on "Samantha Who". We didn't win, but congratulations to Meg Liberman and Cami Patton who won for "Pushing Daisies". Congratulations also go out to Jason Wood for winning his first Artios for "Park" in the independent low budget feature category.

Other friends of AreUaStar.com who won include David Rubin and Richard Hicks for "Re-Count". It was great fun to see all of the agents, managers and of course, all of my Casting Director colleagues. The CSA put together a great event and a wonderful dais that inclued Neil Patrick Harris as the master of ceremonies, Audra McDonald, Elisabeth Shue, Jimmy Smits, Sandra Oh, Joshua Jackson and Selena Gomez.

Kent State - the movie

We are finally moving forward on the Kent State film that I talked about quite some time ago. It's a $5 Million dollar budget and looks to start shooting in February. Our job right now is to attach some name talent to the movie. There are a few great male roles and a couple of strong female roles that we'll be working on right away, then we'll get into the other supporting roles as we go.

Also, some great news for FOT (friends of Tammy). JoAnn Alfano has just been named the Executive Vice President of Lifetime Television. She'll be overseeing Lifetime Television and Lifetime Movie Networks. JoAnn and I are friends and have worked together on a variety of projects in the past including a series for NBC, a pilot for USA networks and most recently the Dove Webisodes. JoAnn was one of the Executive Producers of "30 Rock" and has a long, impressive career in network TV. This is a great job for her and she is going to do really exciting things at Lifetime. Congrats, JoAnn!

Also, announced that Casting Director extraordinaire Meg Liberman is going to head up the Casting department at Paramount Television. Meg was one of my first bosses in television - when we worked together on "Facts of Life"!! She's one of the most highly regarded (and honored) Casting Directors and Paramount is lucky to have convinced her to take the post.

The AreUaStar.com site is going really well. We just added a guest star video of CD Jason Wood talking about getting cast in smaller markets and audition advice. Make sure you check that out, and if you haven't gotten your AreUaStar Evaluation yet - be sure to visit the site to get some real, honest feedback on YOUR star potential.

Actor of the week: Jaime Murray. British actress who came on the scene here in the U.S. in Dexter, playing Lila and now is starring in the new CW show "Valentine".