A Television Show Comes to Harvard

Usually it comes from a CBS-TV studio in New York, where there is no snow, no need for remote units or any other special equipment, no special reason to panic.

But this week, the Omnibus show is different.

It all started back in January, when the producers decided it might be nice to do an entire hour-and-a-half program from Harvard to depict an American university at mid-century.

Andrew K. Lewis, one of the frequent writers of the show and a Harvard grad, class of '49, was assigned to do the script. By the end of January, he had a preliminary outline done. Until three weeks ago, he constantly revised and tightened this up. The he started writing his final draft.

Producers, directors, cameramen, and technicians started drifting through Cambridge between other shows. Preliminary details were made. Then, this week they all appeared, some 50 or 60 of them. Within a week, they had to have the show from Harvard perfected.

Headquarters for Omnibus is Room number 1 in Weld Hall. It has been crowded for most of the week. After lunch hour on Thursday one rather tall, crew-cut man walked out and muttered, "Only one world for what's happening around here: Chaos."

Inside, two men were discussing music stands: "What do you mean, they're locked up: Don't they have classes around here in the afternoon?"

"Yeah, sure they do, but the band has most of them. They're putting on a concert tomorrow night."

"Well, sent some of the boys out. Tell them not to come back until they have four music stands."

The men thought they desparately needed these stands for holding some photographs scheduled to appear on the show.

A secretary entered looking for director Delbert Mann, who had just returned from New York after winning an Oscar the night before for his direction of Marty. "It's Hollywood calling, Del."

Mann picked up the phone: "Yes, very exciting... You sure did, right on the nose... Sounds good, but could you do this for me, check with Bobby Sanford in New York. He's my agent. I'm sure it'll be all right."

Some one mentioned that Del had received "about 12 offers already this morning."

Man might have been the center of outside attention, but in Weld everyone had things to do. With 15 cameras and three remote units--all the mobile equipment CBS has available in the East--scheduled to do the show, attention could not possibly remain with one man for long.

A technician began wondering about the van from New York with two of the remote units. It was scheduled to arrive at 11 a.m., but at last report was wandering around Boston. (It arrived later.)

Lewis was nervously walking up and down, bumming cigarettes, explaining the script, making changes. Mary Ahern, Radcliffe '42, the feature editor, returned from lunch. She was soon busy in conference.

Upstairs, in Weld 6, staff director Elliot Silverstein, in charge of the Eliot House remote unit, started going over The Merchant of Venice with his attractive assistant, Bennie Lee. The Eliot Drama Group was scheduled to do two scenes from this play in the House junior common room. He finally decided on the Jessica and Lorenzo love scene and the Old Gobbo scene for slapstick. It was "finalizing the script," as he called it.

Which One First?

Silverstein called over Mann, who had moved upstairs. "What do you think we should do, Del, have the comedy or love scene first?"

Mann didn't know. "It depends on how the Pudding show is. I'll tell you later this afternoon." He left.

Silverstein told Bennie to type the two scenes into the script anyway. "I think we'll put the love scene first. We can always change it later.

Then he explained the Eliot House schedule to Bennie. "We're in Eliot twice. About twelve minutes into the show, Senator Kennedy comes on. Then, about half-way through the show, 'Merchant,' with the two scenes broken up by the Pudding Show from Sanders. Then straight to Finely and back to Kennedy and a tutorial session."

Bennie went to the IBM typewriter to type the 'Merchant' script. Silverstein called WNAC-TV, which was supplying the third remote unit, the one to be used for Eliot. He wanted to arrange details for the cameras. "Which of you men should we give the Zoomar lens to? Which one has had the most experience?"

He finally decided to give camera 2 the zoomar. This is the one for the 'Merchant' scenes. Camera 1 was set for C-11, where Kennedy and the tutorial would appear. Camera 3 would take Finley's study.

Silverstein looked over the script again. Lewis came in, and he asked him about Kennedy's first appearance. "It's pretty abrupt, Andy. Kennedy says, 'This is tutorial,' and then we have to pan away from him immediately. Not too good."

Lewis thought a moment. "We'll fix it later."

Arranging the furniture was Silverstein's next problem. He took out a pencil and pad and started sketching. For the tutorial session, he envisioned two easy chairs, no desk. The 'Merchant' scenes were more complicated. He phoned his stage manager. "During the minute cut-off, we may have to change the furniture around. Better get some boys to help. We're shooting the two scenes from different parts of the room."

Bennie had almost finished typing the script. "As soon as you're finished, dear, we're going out to eat."

But a quick sandwich was all they had time for. At 4 p.m. they had an appointment with Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government, and Morris M. Goldings '57 in Eliot C-11.

Still they were ten minutes late. Bursting into the room, they found Beer and Goldings there. But they also found Howard E. Hugo, assistant professor of Comparative Literature and a group of his tutees. The University had forgotten to tell Hugo that he could not use his room for the next few days.

New Room for Hugo

One phone call was enough to find a new room for Hugo. Then Beer wanted to know how long he would have to remain. "Would half an hour today be enough?"

"I think more."

"But we're only going to be on the air for four minutes."

Silverstein explained. He was a B.C. graduate himself, and had no idea what tutorial was. He also had to find out how loud Beer's voice was, what the best positions for Goldings and him would be, and other details. "Normally," he said, "four minutes of airtime requires one hour of camera work with professionals in New York." He also asked Beer if he could come to a rehearsal Saturday morning ("Kennedy's going to be there") besides Saturday afternoon, when the four minutes would first go on cameras, and Sunday, when at least two dress rehearsals would be staged. Although at first he refused, by the end of the session Beer had agreed to this.

The Tutorial System

But meanwhile Beer explained the tutorial system to Silverstein, with Goldings adding a word or two--including the fact that Beer was not his regular tutor ("Louis Hartz is") and that normally he did not have individual tutorial.

Finally, Silverstein thought he understood. "I see, now we've established that it's quiet and informal. Now how about you two sitting here in nice easy chairs, with a fire in the fireplace."

Beer mildly objected. "Well, that's a little corny. We don't want to make it too informal. It's an exchange of ideas." But he agreed to it.

Silverstein mentioned the script. "Has anyone talked to you about a subject yet?" Beer answered, yes, he had talked to Finley, who was going to give the cue to him. Silverstein looked at his script. "I see there's a line written in for you--it's the first time I've seen it."

Beer replied that he knew about this. He even knew it was meant to be something like "Yes, that's all very well, but the Athenians did lose the war." From there the discussion was meant to go into the relative merits of the democratic system.

While Beer and Goldings discussed what to say, Silverstein wandered around the room, lifting up the rug to see what type of floor it was. He noticed the bare bookshelves.

"You must fill them," Beer said. "You can get some books easily enough from the library."

Silverstein asked two students from the Employment Office to move the furniture around. Beer and Goldings started wondering whether or not they should mention Kennedy's book. "If we do, we could say it's a very good book, but a very short book," Beer said.

Finally the set was ready. Silverstein asked the tutor and tutee to move to the easy chairs. Beer sat down for a moment, but then objected more vehemently than before. "I don't like these easy chairs. I'd rather have a hard chair."

He switched.

Goldings told Silverstein that "my chair is hard enough."

But Beer was still not satisfied. He wanted to sit at a desk. And so they moved. Silverstein explained the camera angles were not as good, but he was willing to give it a try.

Then he asked Beer if it would be all right to have Kennedy sitting on the corner of the desk, since it was necessary to get him into the discussion as well. Beer agreed. "It's completely bogus, but it's all right."

Non-Submissive Undergrad

After a dry run through, Silverstein was satisfied. Beer, however, started telling Golding to be more forceful in his rebuttals during the tutorial session. "I want them to see the Harvard undergrad as non-submissive," he explained.

The subject changed to what Goldings should wear. Beer suggested chinos and a sports coat instead of a suit. Goldings objected. "Chinos are so conventional."

But Beer persisted. "This whole thing is bogus, but we've got to make it as little bogus as possible. Wear the chinos."

With that, the first session of the Eliot tutorial scene was over. On the way back to Weld, Silverstein started worrying about WNAC-TV's remote unit. The station had promised to have it all ready to go by 3 p.m. on Saturday. Yet, it did not plan to start setting it up until 11 a.m. that same day. As he told Bennie, "Do you realize, they want to do in four hours what our men from New York plan to do in two days with the other units? How can they possibly hope to be finished on time?"

She Was Joking

In Weld, Silverstein showed Lewis the way he planned to do the tutorial scene. Lewis said he liked it. A few minutes later, just after 5 p.m., one girl said, "No more problems. We're shut for the night." Naturally, she was joking. Numerous script revisions still had to be made, and then the corrected versions had to be mimeographed. Also, the directors and producers still had to watch the Pudding show rehearsal at 5:30 and the Glee Club at 6:50. But both of these were relatively relaxing for all concerned. Their only purpose was to give the Omnibus staff some idea of what type of material each group had available for the air. The actual choice was to be made later.

At 8:15 p.m., people started talking about food. They asked for Mary Ahearn's advice on where to go since she lives in Cambridge. It was the "same, old place," however: Chez Dreyfus. While the others went ahead, Mary stayed behind to make a few general comments about the show.

"On paper, we're in wonderful shape now as far as time is concerned," she said. "But by Sunday we might be ten minutes over. There's no way of telling about the timing. Alistair (Alistair Cooke, the show's regular emcee who arrived in town Thursday night to speak to the Nieman Fellows) has done the show long enough so that he knows exactly what a minute is. But the other people on the show won't. That's why we need to rehearse so much."

They'll Use Own Words

Mary explained the role of writer Lewis. "He wrote the whole thing through, but only to give the individuals who are going to be on the show some idea of what to say. Each person who speaks will use his own words. Alistair usually writes all of his own material, too, but on a show like this he'll only re-write what Andy has already prepared for him."

Mary took her job philosophically. She has probably spent more time on this show than any other single person, having started it the day after another one of her shows--the last in the series on the Constitution--appeared on Omnibus. She knew something would come out on Sunday, even though normally the professionals in New York "take a week of rehearsals to put on a show." The panic would all be over by Sunday, she felt sure. But, as she puts it, "To make the program look spontaneous, we have to get all the bugs out now."

She left to join the others at Chez Dreyfus