Teaching from a script
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Students know that Richard Allen might just break into a song and dance at any moment.
Two-time Emmy Award-winner Richard Allen dreams of having one of his plays performed on Broadway. So when this self-proclaimed musical junkie and chair of the Department of Radio-TV-Film was asked to write an original musical for a local high school’s inaugural Fine Arts Festival, he felt it was kismet.
In six months, Allen wrote “Return to Planet Zoloft,” a romantic comedy about high school students putting on a musical. It’s based on interviews with the 15-member cast about their hopes, their dreams, their fears. Though this play-within-a-play plot appears similar to the Disney “High School Musical” mega hit, Allen stresses the show’s depth.
“`Zoloft’ is truly a lesson in dramatic theory,” he says. “The whole experience gave me a new perspective on the structure of a musical or play and how to more effectively — and dynamically — teach it. I now infuse what I’ve learned into my course instruction.”
Allen has been drawn to musical theater since attending his first Broadway show, “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman,” in 1966. He even hopes to retire to New York City, his hometown, where he could enjoy a Broadway show every night with his family. So it’s no wonder he’s made a name for himself adapting and writing musicals for the Fort Worth stage.
Allen’s most major musical foray to date is the adaptation of the 1945 film “Mildred Pierce,” thanks to a TCU grant. “I wrote with such passion and no boundaries,” Allen remembers. Titled “Mildred!,” the musical consists of 20 original songs with 10 reprises and is three hours and 45 minutes from start to finish.
“It is the most creative project I’ve ever worked on and is true music theater, invoking such greats as ‘Funny Girl’ and ‘Gypsy,’ ” he continued. Allen still proudly shares the Playbill link [link to: www.playbill.com/news/article/print/68890.html] highlighting the 2002 performance at Texas’ Stage West. His next musical, “Audition,” was a 45-minute, one-act show, consisting of five actors with a set of five chairs and a piano. “`Return to Planet Zoloft’ is a nice mix of the two,” he says.
“Zoloft” centers around Drummond, a young drama student with an enormous crush on Heather. Drummond aims to write and star in the show, which will end with him kissing the girl of his dreams.
“Of course, Heather is interested in Jared, who is only concerned about pursuing his interest in filmmaking,” Allen notes. It is called “Return to Planet Zoloft” because some key characters are on anti-depressants — but none of them are ever taking their medications at the same time.
For the majority of college and university faculty, research is cut and dry. Consisting of a statement of problem, literature review, the study’s aim and method, data analysis and a report of findings, the research is summed up in an article for publication. For those faculty involved in the arts, such as Allen, research is a creative endeavor — a performance, the writing of a novel or screenplay, a musical composition — that does not always lead to publication.
“It’s flattering how this creative opportunity came to be,” Allen says. “I was initially approached by the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts in 2006 to write a play for 15 students planning to travel abroad for an international theater festival.”
When that team of actors couldn’t attend the festival, the fate of “Zoloft” was left up in the air. A friend put Allen in touch with the Fort Worth Country Day School’s theater director, who jumped at the chance to perform an original musical. “It’s not every day that high school students get an opportunity to perform something that has never been seen before and make it their own,” he notes.
What was first commissioned to be a play quickly morphed into Allen’s beloved genre. He followed the lead of another of his favorite musicals, “A Chorus Line,” which is based on interviews from the auditioning dancers. “I met with the kids over a period of months, interviewing them and learning about their feelings, their hopes, their dreams, their fears,” he says.
Allen admits he used some of his own high school experiences and those of his children when writing because he wanted the dialogue and relationships amongst characters to be real. But he was quick to realize it would be difficult to make a musical about the personal lives of all 15 students involved. Ever interested in the creative process, Allen chose to base the musical on the very structure he would follow in his writing process.
He invoked Freytag’s Pyramid and began writing. The dramatic structure of a play, according to Gustav Freytag, begins with an exposition, some action that leads to a climax or turning point, falling action and some sort of resolution, also referred to as a denouement.
“The more modern plays also make use of a peripeteia, a movement in the play where everything seems to be going in one direction but then there’s a reversal of fortune,” Allen notes.
The 13 songs within “Return to Planet Zoloft,” written by Allen, and composed by Charles Whitehead, MM ’97, are all about the style and structure of writing a play. “It was fun to write the lyrics because it [the structure] allowed for a play on words of sorts, giving me, as playwright, the opportunity to teach the audience,” Allen shares. Songs, such as “Obvious Exposition,” “Peripty” and “Falling Action Zone,” show the audience where they are within the play.
“This play is truly a lesson in dramatic structure and resembles taking a class,” Allen adds. Allen hopes to publish the piece as a lesson in dramatic structure.
“The work I do as a writer is fulfilling, but it also allows me to be a better teacher,” he notes. Armed with an MFA in Playwriting, Allen spent the early part of his career writing for such shows as “Days of Our Lives,” “As the World Turns,” “General Hospital,” “Another World” and “One Life to Live” in order to build his resume.
“I always knew I would pursue a career in academia,” he shares. “I was bit by the teaching bug as a TA in graduate school. Writing for soaps was challenging, but it was a grueling day-in and day-out process that sometimes didn’t allow for the type of creativity and personal interaction I was looking for.”
While Allen is certainly proud of his Emmys; he is most proud of the 2001 Best Mentor and 2006 College of Communication Award for Distinguished Achievement as a Creative Teacher and Scholar awards that were bestowed on him by TCU and his students.
“Everything that I write or create is transferable to the classroom; I see to it,” he says. “I want to pass on to my students a passion for the profession, but also let them know that there is much to be learned even after you graduate from college and graduate school. I truly subscribe to the teacher-scholar model.”
Allen continues to pursue his Broadway dreams as a playwright. His current screenplay, which is under consideration by several producers, is titled “Major Bill.” Co-written with Terry Smith ’04, the script is set in Fort Worth during the ’60s and ’70s and centers on Terry’s father, Major Bill LaCarn Smith, a record producer, who in the late 1980s claimed Elvis Presley was very much alive. He is also working on a theatricalization of a class he taught, which will ultimately serve as a commentary on his life as a professor.
Contact Allen at r.allen@tcu.edu
Comment at tcumagazine@tcu.edu.
His original play, “The Man Who Killed Rock Monnenoff,” has been produced by Atlanta´s Theatre-in-the-Square. Allen’s “Seducing Sally” was produced at Fort Worth Theatre in 1999. His collection of 54 short plays based on the Torah, Parashah Plays, was published in June 2000 by ARE Publishing. “Big Shots,” Allen’s teleplay starring Ed Asner, Bonnie Franklin, Steve Landesberg, Lawrence Pressman and Jonathan Prince, was broadcast on PBS in South Florida as well as on the Jewish Television Network in 1997. His screenplay, “The O´Hare Affair” was optioned by Segue Productions in 1995. As a writer for “As the World Turns” Allen won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2001. He was a nominee in 1987 for “Days of Our Lives.” A three-time Writers Guild Award nominee, Richard has won a Soap Opera Award, a Media Access Award and the Environmental Media Award. As a professor, Allen won the 1999 Delta Gamma Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence and in 2001 was awarded the Wassenich Award for Mentoring at TCU. He was also named to Jewsweek´s list of the 50 most influential Jews in America.
