Easton, Howarth to return for Web version of 'OLTL'

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LOS ANGELES, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Three actors who joined the U.S. soap opera "General Hospital" after "One Life to Live" was canceled will return for a new Web version of "OLTL."

Michael Easton, Kristen Alderson and Roger Howarth took their "OLTL" characters -- John McBain, and Starr and Todd Manning -- to ABC's sister daytime drama "General Hospital" when the network scrapped "OLTL" in 2011.

Prospect Park -- the production company behind soon-to-start online versions of "OLTL" and the also-canceled-by-ABC "All My Children" -- announced Tuesday it is working on a deal with the network to allow the three stars to appear in both "GH" and the Web edition of "OLTL."

"Prospect Park understands that 'General Hospital' has featured Llanview transplants Michael Easton and Kristen Alderson among others while we arranged production of the new version of 'One Life to Live,'" Prospect Park said in a statement.

"These characters, who we own under our agreement, are obviously essential to our production efforts, and a large reason we licensed the program. We also understand that legions of 'General Hospital' fans have grown to love these actors and characters in a short time. So even though we are paying ABC millions of dollars to license the shows, we have been, and continue to be willing to equally share the characters with 'General Hospital' and ABC. It's a win-win for the actors, the shows and fans, who love all of the shows and story-lines. We hope to work out these agreements with ABC and the actors."

ABC has not publicly commented on the casting situation.