Want to Meet Some of Your Favorite Soap Stars? Time's Running Out to Participate in the "Gays of Our Lives" Weekend!

Have you ever wanted to meet the gay characters fros Alles Was Zählt, Dante’s Cove, GREEK, Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten, Queer as Folk, and Verbotene Liebe?

Well now you can do the next best thing. You can meet the actors that play your favorite gay soap characters!

There are still tickets left for the Gays Of Our Lives - International Event, which will be held the weekend of March 26-28 in NYC.

You can find out who'll be attending, and learn more about how the event came to be in the interview below with Shirley Ozment, who came up with the idea for the weekend. And to provide an added incentive, part of the proceeds will go to The Trevor Project and the German charity Aidshilfe Köln.

How did Gays of Our Lives come to be?

When I found Verbotene Liebe's, Christian and Olli storyline on Nanna's Ichglotzutube channel a year ago, I instantly fell in love with the story. I have followed the subtitled clips that Nanna is generous enough to upload every day since. Then I found the amazing love story of Deniz and Roman on Alles Was Zählt, and most recently America's own wonderful story of Kyle and Oliver (KISH) on One Life to Live.

Fans from all over the world have fallen in love with these stories and wait patiently as wonderful people such as Nanna and the Eskimo Kiss Project girls subtitle these clips and upload them for all of us to see. Communities grow up around these shows, people who start out just loving the stories but then growing to love each other and developing deep friendships.

While helping to publicize the shows, my friends and I saw how much the fans wanted to meet their favorite stars. One day we decided to see if there was a way to do it. We spoke to a few people in the industry to see if they would help with planning and promotion and then we all divided up by our varying degrees of talent (web design, accounting, marketing, etc) and pulled "Gays of our Lives" together.

It was during the initial planning when we decided we wanted more than the publicity and Meet and Greets. We wanted it all to matter on a different level as well. We chose two charities that we thought would and could benefit from the proceeds of the event, as well as represent the event itself. We chose one American charity, The Trevor Project, and one German charity, Aidshilfe Köln.

Who are the stars attending?

Currently from Germany, we have Jo Weil and Thore Schölermann (Christian and Olli) from Verbotene Liebe, Dennis Grabosch and Igor Dolgatschew (Roman and Deniz) from Alles Was Zählt and Felix Isenbuegel (Carsten) from Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten. We also have the head storywriter from Alles Was Zählt, Tom Chroust, who used to work for Verbotene Liebe and was responsible for bringing us the love story of "Christian and Olli".

From America, we have Gregory Michael, who was once on As the World Turns, but many will know him from HERETV!'s Dante's Cove as Kevin, he was most recently seen on ABC Family's GREEK. Nicholas Rodriquez is tentatively scheduled to appear, but he has been offered a play during the same time; he says he will try his best to attend for at least some of the events. And last but not least, the ever funny Hal Sparks (Michael Novotny) from Showtime's Queer as Folk, who will host our Saturday Q&A/Celebration event.

What events do you have planned?

We have several fun events scheduled. We will start the weekend off with a cocktail party at Madame X. It promises to be a very warm, intimate time for the celebrities to mingle with their fans. Saturday will kick off with a buffet lunch, after which Hal will host a series of Q&A and trivia sessions, complete with more Meet and Greets and photo opps for the fans to see these actors who bring their favorite stories to life.

We’re especially excited that this eventful day will take place at the historic Stonewall Inn - an appropriate setting, we think, to celebrate the positive way that gay characters are represented in these shows. On Saturday night, we will return to the Stonewall Inn to spend the night dancing with the stars! Our last hurrah, on Sunday morning, will be a breakfast brunch with all the celebrities – and the friends we’ve made over the weekend.

Why do you think folks respond to these particular actors so strongly?

I think I respond to them so strongly because they portray their characters with such honesty and sincerity - you truly believe that they are in love. You believe that they care deeply and would do anything for the other person. You forget they are actors and they are reading lines that were written for them. You forget they are given details on how to hold their head, kiss their partner. You become part of their story and get caught up in the moment with them – so much so that if another character threatens that sacred relationship, there is hell to pay from the fans! That is a sign of a brilliant actor and to me, every single one of these guys has that talent in spades.

But there is a broader reason too, I think. What these actors are doing is groundbreaking in terms of representing gay characters in television. They might be dismissed by many as “just being on soaps”, but the fact is that, in portraying same-sex relationships as just as valid (and generating attention about the realistic struggles that these couples face), these actors are role models whether they want to be or not. Time and time again, viewers remark that they feel marginalized in the media, where heterosexual relationships are about all you see. When they discover DeRo or Chrolli or Kish, and see something of themselves on screen, it’s an empowering thing.

Do the German actors know each other?

I think they have met each other. Jo, Thore, Dennis and Igor work in the same location in Cologne, but their work schedules don’t permit them to spend much time together, so this should be fun for them as well. And Felix, he will meet everyone for the first time, I believe. And as far as I know, the Germans are looking forward to meeting Hal, Gregory and Nicholas and vice versa, so that should be a lot of fun for them. Meet some new friends and have some fun partying with them and the fans in NYC.