WGBH May Televise Shows From Loeb During Summer

The University will offer WGBH, Boston's educational TV station, the use of the Loeb Drama Center's experimental theatre for full-time production this summer. A letter officially informing WGBH of the offer should go into the mail early this week.

The only condition attached to the proposal concerns the use of some of the electrical equipment in the building, which would not always be available for WGBH. Because the University helps finance the station there will be no rental fee and only a small maintenance charge.

WGBH used the experimental theatre last summer, but only for filming one show each week, the "Brattle St. Forum," moderated by Thomas E. Crooks, director of the Summer School. The offer for this summer involves a fully-equipped production studio.

The proposal is limited to the experimental theatre because the Summer School players will give at least four full shows on the main stage, as they did last year. Titles for these productions are not yet definite and were not selected for last year's summer session until mid-April.

David M. Davis, assistant General Manager of TV for WGBH, said last night that his company hoped to repeat "Brattle St. Forum" this summer. The Forum last year was a two-hour discussion conducted among Summer School Faculty members on such topics as "Race Relations" or "The Berlin Problem." It was taped in the Loeb and was televised the following day.

WGBH's own studio burned last fall, and the station is currently broadcasting from the channel 5 building, where it will continue until May. WGBH requested the use of the Loeb for summer studio work when it became apparent that its own studio would not be ready for use until this September.

Davis said that other work, besides the Brattle St. Forum, which he hoped to do in the Loeb includes taping for both immediate and long-range programing, but no live productions. Much of the long-range taping he plans is a series of video courses to be given next fall, as well as some documentary films on nuclear devices for the armed forces. Any decisions on shows for immediate broadcasting would have to await official confirmation of the availability of Loeb, he said.

No live productions will be done in the experimental theatre, because it is easier for WGBH to move in its video-taping equipment than to move in its actual cameras.