Wellesley Group Refused Access To Arts Center

The Group 20 Players, a Wellesley summer theatre organization, protested yesterday against Metropolitan District Commission plans to lease a new arts center on Soldiers Field Road to the Metropolitan Boston Arts Center.

Their objection was based on the fact that MEBAC, a new non-profit organization, has selected the Cambridge Drama Festival as the only summer theatre group to use the "ideal site," which will open July 5.

"Although we are told that MEBAC is to administer the project for the good of all artistic institutions in the area, the plans were announced without any consultation with Group 20 Players," the Wellesley group claimed.

A spokesman for the Players stressed that the group wants "equal time to use the Soldiers Field site, which is much better than Sanders Theatre or the Wellesley College Amphitheatre." The organization hopes to lease the arts center for the 1960 season and thereafter to share the theatre equally with the CDF.

Loss of Business Feared

Asserting that their requests to share the new theatre have been disregarded, the Group 20 Players concluded that "the Commonwealth either does not realize or does not care that MEBAC's first step, the classical summer season to be run by the Cambridge Drama Festival, may very conceivably put us out of business."

Fund-raising in Boston and hiring of artists in New York, as well as summer patronage are "three vital ways" in which the Wellesley organization will have to compete with "state-endorsed competition," their statement said.

Members objected that although their organization has functioned continuously since 1953, run for two years in the black, and developed an experienced producing unit and permanent company, it was ignored in favor of a group formed in 1956, which ran one summer season "at a large deflicit" and has since functioned "only as a booking agent."

MEBAC and the MDC will meet this afternoon to consider the objections raised by the Wellesley organization.