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With four new shows debuting this spring on Harvard-Radcliffe Television (HRTV), the four-year-old, 150-odd student group is preparing to launch a fundraising campaign in the fall, hoping to finance better filming and editing facilities. HRTV is growing rapidly-the spring premieres included a game show, Survey Says, pitting teams from different Houses and dorms against each other in a Family Feud-style contest; a computer-animated feature about college life entitled Yard Tails, depicting Harvard first-years as mice; an arts and entertainment show, Great Performances, offering students' dramatic and musical endeavors; and a late-night talk show, Wide Awake, featuring a live band and audience.

Other shows include Crimson Edition, a news program, and HRTV's best-known endeavor, Ivory Tower, a soap opera that takes place at Harvard. "We deal with a lot of your normal soap opera issues, but in a Harvard context," explains HRTV president Dave Alpert '97. Episodes have featured student-teaching fellow romances, pregnancy, date rape, and rendezvous in the stacks of Widener Library. HRTV has full access to the campus: as a student group, they are allowed to film in Harvard Yard, a privilege rarely granted to commercial enterprises.

HRTV's continued growth will require more sophisticated equipment and also, ideally, some studio space, according to publicity director Jared Bush '96, who says he hopes to raise as much as $50,000. In the past, the group has relied on small grants from the Undergraduate Council and the Office for the Arts. "This is an important transitional year for us," says Bush. "Our methods are improving, and our overall quality has jumped a lot." Currently, HRTV shows are distributed to the Houses on videotape and shown in common areas; the goal, according to Bush, is to be able to broadcast on a Harvard cable channel so that students could view productions in the comfort of their own rooms.

Next year, HRTV productions will appear more regularly, with each show airing a monthly episode. Also in the works are three movies, under the auspices of the Harvard Filmmakers' Network (an HRTV spin-off) and three new TV shows. As it embarks on its fundraising venture, HRTV also hopes to add additional members to its honorary board of advisers, which already includes actor Jack Lemmon '47, actor and former Overseer John Lithgow '67, comedian Conan O'Brien '85, actresses Amy Brenneman '86 and Elisabeth Shue '88, and Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino '89. In the meantime, the group has won some national attention: an NBC camera crew from the magazine show Real Life spent a day in May on campus, filming HRTV members producing and screening scenes from Ivory Tower.

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