"I literally put my life on hold," says Horvath, who's currently writing a memoir, shopping a television show and running his reiki (the Japanese art of healing) practice, Downtime StageLeft. Horvath was contacted in April by Executive Producer Frank Valentini, who wanted the three Prom Night directors to each work with a different choreographer. Horvath says he was extremely flattered when he was selected by all three to handle the choreography and was asked to play the role of Blake, the dance instructor who coerced Starr and Cole into doing the cha-cha. "That was such a surprise to me. I was like, 'Really? That'd be great. Let's do it!' "

After taping Blake's appearances, Horvath had to get right to work behind the scenes in a condensed time frame. "I kind of referred to it as a snowball running downhill because of the deadlines and how we had to do this and turn it around," he explains. "So as the music came in, I sat with each director and conceptualized the numbers and then I tried to get into their heads on what they were doing camera-wise and thought about how to develop the choreography around that."

From mid-May through the first week in June, Horvath came up with a stylistic vision for each number (which incorporated various dance styles), taught the routines and directed the dancers during taping. "For [Langston and Markko's] 'You're the Freak,' I knew it was a pop-lock, hip-hop challenge, so I really started formulating that number at the auditions to see if somebody had this specific trick that no one else had." Britney's song, "The Cheerleader Is Always the Bitch," was a little less "street" and more pop, featuring "gratuitous, very pom-pom cheerleader movements," describes Horvath, while the first ensemble number, "Together," used "character-driven, Broadway jazz" dancing.

"No matter whether I am choreographing for television or film or even theater, I throw my heart and both my feet into my work," he declares. "So this was really great to be able to pull off the different styles that each number required, which to me, as a choreographer, is really fun."

Having freelanced for daytime TV on the East Coast for 15 years, Horvath has had gigs on OLTL, ALL MY CHILDREN and GUIDING LIGHT, including OLTL's special 2002 episode, Babes Behind Bars, which featured nine production numbers. "The big difference between Babes Behind Bars and Prom Night is the fact that we had 22 people singing live on set and it was very difficult to do pickups, so we shot those numbers pretty much beginning to end," Horvath explains. This time around, Music Director Paul S. Glass prerecorded the numbers, which gave the dancers the ability to stop and pick up their steps midsong during shooting. "This is much more directed in the realm of music video instead of just putting on a musical number and shooting it like a proscenium, like it's live onstage," he adds.

Horvath also worked with Hillary B. Smith and Robert S. Woods for Nora and Bo's famous ballroom dancing scenes in the '90s and choreographed GL's swing dancing episodes for the opening of the Springfield nightclub Millenium. When asked to dish on soaps' most able steppers, Horvath's list goes on. "Kathy Brier [Marcie, OLTL] is major, major talent. Jason Tam [Markko, OLTL] is amazing. Kassie DePaiva [Blair, OLTL] moves very well. Lisa Brown [ex-Nola, GL; ex-Iva, ATWT], major tapper. Jerry verDorn [Clint, OLTL]! He was featured in quite a few of the bits that I did with GUIDING LIGHT [as Ross]. He did great. And Hillary and Bob are still the top-notch ballroom dancers."

So what's next for Horvath? "I have projects in the fire. Now I'll get back into the rhythm of writing the book [tentatively titled Summer Shorts]. I'm excited and I'm anticipating getting some stuff done this year. We'll see!"