Radio-TV-film Prof. Richard Allen is the sort who ponders: Will Lilly find her lost husband and son? Will Craig be convicted of planting the bomb that nearly killed Barbara? Will Carly choose Craig over Jack, and will Julia attack Carly in revenge?

No, Allen, a favorite professor of students and in his eighth year at TCU, isn’t a soap opera addict; he’s more like these characters’ spiritual father — Allen gets to decide what they’ll do and what’ll they say as an award-winning writer for CBS’s As the World Turns.

Allen’s writing decisions earned the dramatist an Emmy as well as one for the series and one of its actresses. (Yet, in a soap opera-like move, Allen’s contract expired shortly after the award and the show chose not to renew it. Stay tuned.) Allen’s fame as a writer also earned him a recent honor in the Jewish community as the online magazine Jewsweek selected him in July as one of the 50 Most Influential Jews in America.

According to the site, he was chosen for his religious integrity as a writer and teacher. Other members of Jewsweek.com’s list include Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and filmmaker Stephen Spielberg.

Allen said he knew nothing of the recognition in advance, and was surprised to get a congratulatory phone call about it.

“It’s very nice to be up with that company, but I don’t think I’m even the most influential Jew in my zip code, and I’m sure as heck not the most influential Jew in my household,” Allen quipped, noting he is 46 on the list. “But I’m the only one of the list from Texas or even from the South, I think, so I may be the most influential Jew south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

Allen has been writing for daytime dramas — including One Life to Live, General Hospital and Another World — since 1986 and received his first Emmy nomination the next year. He joined the TCU faculty eight years ago. Now that he’s not doing scripts for TV, he’s secured a TCU grant to write an original stage musical based on the 1945 movie Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford.

The musical will be a workshop production which will premier at Stage West next fall. Allen hopes the project will secure external funding that will allow this type of musical workshop program to become an ongoing opportunity for local artists.