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"Applause, Applause Hillary B. Smith (Nora, One Life To Live) OUTSTANDING PERFORMER FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 10   Soap Opera Weekly Volume 8 Issue 14 April 8, 1997 ONE OF THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD happen to an actor during a live performance, other than forgetting his or her lines, is being asked to come up with lines - any lines - to stretch out a scene. But when such a situation is scripted, it gives a performer a great opportunity to strut her stuff. Hillary B. Smith and her One Life To Live character, Nora, had this opportunity when Nora gave her closing argument in Antonio's trial.   Nora was desperate to buy some time. Her husband, Bo, the police commisioner, had gone to Boston to bring back what would hopefully be compelling evidence proving Antonio's innocence. Not knowing exactly when Bo would return, Nora had to think on her feet to stretch out her "performance" before the judge and jury. As Nora, Smith displayed her award-winning range for physical comedy (a feigned coughing fit, followed by a dissertation on mold spores), humor (Nora seemingly losing her mind by going off on a tangent about Jewish folk tales) and dramatic rendering from the heart (her straightforward plea to the jury that they must find her client innocent). After what seemed an eternity, Bo arrived with Mortimer Bern, whose testimony cleared Antonio.   "I just howled when I read it," Smith says of the script. "It just opened so many doors. There was so much I could do. I haven't done a lot of things on the show for a long time, so it was really fun to play." Although the majority of what we heard was scripted, she admits, "I'll take off on tangents if I'm given the place to do it." In this case, Nora's rat-a-tat, mile-a-minute mold spores speech was where Smith did most of her ad-libbing. "That was me just going out on,'Whoops, there goes a mold spore now,' and that whole thing. Then I just talked until I gave Michael Lombard (who played the judge) his cue line, where I said 'unless I come in with my own bottle of disinfectant, I guess I'll have to learn to live with it.' Michael said, 'You just talk, and when you say that I'll cut you off.'" Since comedic timing is crucial, Smith delivered her lines during dress rehearsal as she had planned to during taping. "It gave the actors in the courtroom scene a chance to hear it, laugh, get it out of their sytems, then move on," Smith says so that during taping they could express disbelief rather than try to stifle giggles. The only place where she held back during rehearsal was Nora's last speech to the jury before Bo arrived. Justice was served for Antonio, while the show's viewers were served up a portion of meaty material, delivered by one of daytime's best. -IRENE S. KEENE