Question #1 is, why are you doing an 'escapeHTML' on a plain-text string? Unless you're defanging arbitrary input, it's not very useful - and getting rid of it would make your life much easier.

Having said that, there is a (less-than-pretty) solution: </p?

print td("font color='red'>".escapeHTML("required")."</font>");
[download]

-- 
I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits.
 -- Bernard Moitessier, "The Long Way"