Some soapy wisdom

Fort Worth, TX

2/17/2006

By: Olga Bograd, TCU Daily Skiff reporter

As a crew of students rushed around the set during the first day of filming their own soap opera, a former Hollywood script writer and now a TCU professor, Richard Allen, sat in the back row of the production room and observed in silence.

Richards says he doesn’t like to interrupt, even if he sees a glaring error. He thinks making mistakes is what it’s all about.

“He is allowing us to learn,” said Anna Leigh Simmons, a senior radio-TV-film major and executive producer of the soap opera. He lets an hour go by and then can say, “Oh, tweak it this way.”

The love of teaching

Allen has been part of TCU’s RTVF program for 13 years. While he spent the earlier years of his career writing for shows like “Days of Our Lives” and “As the World Turns” and has won two Emmy Awards, he said teaching is definitely a more rewarding experience. The award he is most proud of is TCU’s best mentor award that he received in 2001.

Allen began writing for soap operas to get experience and to build his resume for a teaching job. He said the Emmys were just a bonus. But after years of writing for some of the biggest soap operas on television, he said, it was time for a change. One of the reasons, Allen said, was that he did not enjoy working in Hollywood because of the pressure to write scripts quickly.

“It’s very assembly-line,” Allen said. “You think you get to be creative – but there is no room for it.”

So Allen took the first and only job offer he got and moved to Fort Worth.

The pressure runs high

Besides teaching in classes at TCU and being the chairman of the RTVF department, Allen has been helping students create their own productions for years. “Southern Comforts,” the soap opera students are filming this semester, is the most recent in a series of projects Allen’s students have created over the last few years. Allen said he hopes to keep up the tradition.

Pushing students to succeed

“Southern Comforts” is a project that has been in the making since last year, and one of Allen’s classes was in charge of creating the plotlines and writing the scripts. This is exactly what Allen did in Hollywood, and once again he showed that he wants students to be in charge. Simmons said this is another way Allen encourages students to develop.

Renee Godelia, a TCU alumna that now works for “Days of Our Lives” said Allen treats his students like professionals and wants them to grow not only as students, but as people.

“I kind of thought of us as co-workers,” Godelia said.

Godelia said she got her current job with Allen’s help. She said that when she was a part of a soap opera production in 2000, Allen was just like he is today.

That something special

Eric Cire, another RTVF major, also said Allen maintains a personal relationship with students.

“Despite the fact that he’s head of the department and a two-time Emmy winner, he’s still one of the most accessible and down-to-earth professors I’ve ever had,” Cire said.

Standing Apart

Besides being known for his writing and teaching skills, Allen was also honored in 2001 by Jewsweek.com, which named him the 46th most important Jew in America. He said that although there were only four people below him, the award was quite a surprise.

"I’m not even the most influential Jew in my house,” he joked.

Allen said one of the reasons he was selected to be on the most influential Jews of America list is because he is an observing Jew and did not attend the Emmy presentation to pick up his own award because it was on Shabbat.

He said religion plays a significant role in his family’s life. It is especially important for his wife, he said, who wants to study to become a synagogue service leader. He thinks his three children will also make religion a part of their lives as they grow older, even though his young daughter is a little “rebellious”, he joked.

As far as his plans for the future go, Allen does not plan on leaving TCU any time soon. He said his dream would be to retire in New York City, his hometown.

“I’d like to see a Broadway show every night,” he said. “But professors really don’t get paid enough to do that.”

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