Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre/talkarchive6-16-07

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August roll call

Even though we have quite a few members listed on the front page, I think it'd be good to see who's "really here." So just leave your name and what you've been up to. :)

  1. warpedmirror (talk) — I'd been gone for awhile, but have been working a lot on On the Record (musical revue) as of late. As soon as the infobox and article structures go through, I'll be adding infoboxes, creating articles, and assessing others.
  2. Ssilvers 02:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC) Update: I had added a bunch of stubs for foreign musicals and added to the list of musicals. Plus, I added historical info to the flagship article. More recently, I added or expanded stubs or articles on a couple dozen early English musicals and stars, composers, producers, lyricists, etc. of those musicals. I've also been busy at the WP:G&S project.
  3. Usgnus 21:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC) Here, but I don't know how much time I can devote to articles.
  4. Drenched: I'm here, and have plenty of time to help until school starts in September. See my userpage for what pages I've been editing.
  5. omtay38 01:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC) I've been doing other random wiki tasks but have been checking and reverting vandalism on musical related articles I have watched. I'm eager to get my hands on the new infobox and attack the musical pages :-)
  6. Crystallina 01:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC) Sorry, I didn't see this for awhile. I need to assess more articles, write more articles, etc. I've stubbed a few, see my userpage.
  7. MichaelCaricofe 05:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC) As usual, I'm seeing this quite late; sorry. I tend to randomly correct spelling/facts/grammar while browsing articles; musicals are a category I browse a lot. I'll try to contribute somewhere that's needed.

Archive Talk Pages

  • Talk Archive as of August 8, 2006 — 77kb seemed like a lot, so I thought an archive was in store. Discussions with no comments within the past two weeks have been archived. If you feel like something that was archived hasn't been talked out, just bring it back. :) — warpedmirror (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Musical Theatre WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 05:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This post has kind of been sitting here for awhile, and I think it's a good idea for our project. Our Article Assessment page as of now is formatted awkwardly and I think it would be nice if we had a good, clean one that could also help with other aspects of Wikipedia. If no one else is for it, then I guess let's not worry about it, but is anyone else interested in this? – warpedmirror (talk) 18:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I would just give them the flagship article on musicals, for now. --Ssilvers 21:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor minor stupid question about referencing musical title in article

When the title of the musical is mentioned throughout the article about the musical, should it just appear Capitalized, Italicized, Bolded, "In quotes", or what? I've noticed that many articles have been lacking in consistency and often jump around all these options at whim. I know this is such a stupid insignificant little matter, but I have OCD and it's driving me batty and I want to settle the matter once and for all. I'm leaning towards Italicized or maybe even just Capitalized, but that's just my ungrounded preference. What do you all think? --Drenched 02:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Consistent style is not insignificant, nor is your question stupid :) For a question like this, I refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style, aka MOS, and in this case, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). I believe that musicals fall within the more general group of plays, for which the guideline is to use italics, not bold, (except for the use of bold for the subject of an article in the opening sentence of the article. That's the general Wikipedia guideline. I'll leave it to others to answer whether there is a different guideline within the Musical Theatre project. Cheers, and kudos to you for jumping in with serious editing and serious questions after such a short time as an editor. --Lini 03:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Right, I think the first time you use it, it should be: The Fantasticks is a musical by.... Thereafter, it should just be The Fantasticks. --Ssilvers 04:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both for your super-fast clear responses. That MOS will definitely come in handy. :) Happy editing! Take care, --Drenched 04:43, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Correction: It should be: The Fantasticks is a musical by.... And then formatted as The Fantasticks for the rest of the article, as you said. – warpedmirror (talk) 10:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


Not sure if this is the proper place, but something needs to be done about the title of Webber's Cats throughout the article. A decision needs to be made whether it is all caps or not. MichaelCaricofe 05:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


Article Assessment

Looks like we've got the pages for musicals, at least, somewhat full. I assume we start assessing now? Any particular guidelines, or should we start brainstorming them? Crystallina 23:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I think once we should now reach a conclusion about the format of the articles. This will create easier assessment because each article can be compared to what it should have according to our format. --omtay38 00:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I still don't think we should put the list of musical numbers INTO the plot synopsis, unless there are not that many musical numbers. It makes for bad prose. If the musical has a long list of numbers (let's say more than 10), I think they can be listed out. Or we could leave the choice up to the writer of the article whether to list them out or integrate them into the synopsis. Secondly, I think the list of roles should be required rather than optional. Other than that, I like the format. --Ssilvers 04:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
This is an awsome discussion to have, but, let's have it here. (Sslivers, i'll post your comment there too so it will not be overlooked). --omtay38 07:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This probably isn't the right place to post (but article assessment's own discussion board seems a bit dead compared to here!) but here goes anyway. Do you guys think it'd be a good idea to have each article assessed by more than one editor to promote consistency in rating? I know that assessing that massive list of musicals just once is already a rather daunting task & this is probably a stretch, but I'm just throwing that out there. P.S. I made a new article, jukebox musical, but it sucks right now, so please help fix it! Thanks. --Drenched 02:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I'm all for having more than one person assess each article...though it might be better to have all the articles assessed first before others start reassessing them. — warpedmirror (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The Ann Pennington references in the Ziegfield Follies list sends the reader to the WRONG Ann Pennington, a Playboy Model, not a Ziefield dancer from the 1913,'14,'15,'16,'18,'23,'24-'25 shows. This should be fixed. 69.159.104.60 06:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Donald Kingsbury, 1 September 2006

Two Propositions

There have been two propositions made about the finalization of both the infobox template and the Article Structure page. Each of the Propositions has been made on the respective talk page but I've decided to post links to them here as they are both very important decisions and discussions. Please read each of them thoroughly and add your comments or votes.

--omtay38 06:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

If you've posted a message in my sandbox with suggestions about the article structure page, please check back there as I have added it. If you haven't posted a message in my sandbox with your opinions on the structure of articles, shame on you! :-D ---omtay38 23:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's pick a few articles to seriously work on

Nothing will draw more attention to this project than getting a Featured Article. Of course, that takes time and dedicated effort. Both of which we're capable of providing. Let's choose a few articles to seriously work on, improve, expand. The first goal is Good Article status.

Any suggestions? I have a few in mind but won't push them until I get group input. Crystallina 16:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

  • Wicked (musical) - gets around 20 or so edits a day (mostly by IP addresses). It's also outrageously long and predominated by lists. If we got this one to FA status, it would be seen by 20 or so people a day! (However, it's also part of WikiProject Oz and I'm not sure if they've done any work for it.) --omtay38 17:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to be pessimistic, but this article almost seems beyond repair. We may need a whole sub-project to fix this one up! :P But you're right, it is the most popular show on Broadway as of now, and would get a lot of hits. – warpedmirror (talk) 10:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest something like Footloose (musical): an article with a pretty low profile that has some content already to work with, but is still missing a lot of information and needs general cleanup. I'd rather pick an article that requires adding instead of removing content because it'd be easier to organize new info into our predecided format than to reorganize preexisting info that was categorized in a different way. Also, it has low editing participation which would make it easier for us to keep the edits made...low risk of opposition to our drastic changes, reverting, or offending that page's editors if we end up deleting entire sections of their hard work. Also, not all of our format's sections are applicable to all musicals, but they are applicable to Footloose (it has other productions, movie adaptation, a plot conducive to our songs-embedded-in-synopsis format, Tony noms etc.). --Drenched 22:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps, just to get us going, we should focus on a musical that is not currently running on Broadway or the West End, and is by authors who are no longer writing, to help keep the editing process objective and gain some experience. How about Hair or Oklahoma or Sound of Music or one of the Lerner and Lowe musicals? --Ssilvers 22:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a very good point. It's much easier to work on a well known show by writers who are no longer active. Citable sources are much easier to find, and the body of criticism is relatively stable. The ability to develop feature-class articles on a classics like Oklahoma! or or The Sound of Music is critical to the success of the project. Marc Shepherd 23:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course, the only (but fix-able) problem with Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music are that the current articles don't focus on the musical alone. Of course, it may be easier to completely re-write an article than try to fix many of the already-existing ones. Hair, though, does seem like a good candidate (though I, myself, wouldn't be able to contribute a lot to the article). — warpedmirror (talk) 02:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Another important musical that fits the bill is Show Boat. Lots of good content, with citations. A major recent revival. No significant film version to complicate matters Film version is a separate article. --Usgnus --Usgnus 03:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Good suggestion! And the article has notes/references already! (Quite a rarity for most of the musical articles) — warpedmirror (talk) 03:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course, we'll probably want User:Yid613 on board (one of the major contributors to the article), but fortunately listed as a participant in this WikiProject. --Usgnus 03:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


  • A rather obvious suggestion, to me, would be the main Musical theatre article itself. There's plenty that needs to be done here; one thing that immediately strikes me is that it is rather US-centric. Also, there are plenty of original research-sounding sections and POV phrases. Crystallina 13:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Early British musicals

I have spent that last couple of months adding info to Wikipedia on early British musicals and operettas from the 1870s to about 1920. There is now an article or stub on every musical and operetta from that period that ran for at least 400 performances in London (except for a few revues). BTW, London was a much hotter venue for musicals than NY during that period. See the introduction to this list of longest running plays in London and New York. I also added articles on most of the important British composers, writers and lyricists for musicals of the period (and some Americans) and producers, such as Lionel Monckton, Ivan Caryll, Edward Solomon, Sidney Jones Frank Osmond Carr, Alfred Cellier Paul Rubens (composer) and their lyricists and other collaborators (like Harry Greenbank, Percy Greenbank, Owen Hall, Basil Hood, Adrian Ross, B. C. Stephenson, and Henry Pottinger Stephens), as well as managers, like George Edwardes Seymour Hicks, Robert Evett and George Grossmith, Jr. and performers like Lily Elsie, Marie Tempest, Gertie Millar, Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Courtice Pounds, Harry Grattan, Edna May, etc.

Here is a list of some musicals of the period: Morocco Bound, A Gaiety Girl, The Shop Girl, The French Maid, An Artist's Model, The Circus Girl, The Belle of New York, A Runaway Girl, The Geisha, A Greek Slave, Florodora, The Messenger Boy, The Toreador, San Toy, A Chinese Honeymoon, A Country Girl, The Girl from Paris (1897), My Lady Molly, The Girl from Kays, The Orchid, The Earl and the Girl, The Cingalee, The Catch of the Season, The White Chrysanthemum, The Girl Behind the Counter, The New Aladdin (1906), Miss Hook of Holland, The Spring Chicken (1905), The Girls of Gottenberg (1907), Our Miss Gibbs, The Arcadians (musical), The Balkan Princess, The Chocolate Soldier, The Quaker Girl, The Girl from Utah, Chu Chin Chow, The Maid of the Mountains, The Boy.

If you look at the Category for British Musicals, you will see more new articles and stubs. In many cases, I have put links at the bottom of the articles that should lead you to more online information, such as links to song lists, cast lists and synopses. This site also has a heap of information about these works. Please expand these if you can. As for the articles on the composers and their collaborators, I have taken those as far as I can, so if you have further references and interest, please polish those up. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers 03:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Stub sorting proposal

I'm assuming and/or hoping none of you have any objections to me proposing getting rid of {{musical-theat-stub}} at WP:WSS. Honestly, it's just jamming up the organization there. What I'm proposing is to put theatre bios in one category, actual theatre structures in another, plays in another, and possibly musicals as a child of plays. If anyone has any objections, speak up now either here or there. The truth is, though, that the way it is right now is just horribly disorganized and it's hard to tell what goes where. Crystallina 02:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

IBDB Templates

I don't know if it's within the scope of this project, but there are some issues with the IBDB external link templates. Before today, there were three templates, Template:ibdb name for people, Template:ibdb venue for theatres, and Template:ibdb title for shows. The problem with the Ibdb title template is that it actually links to the productions query. So if a show has had multiple productions, this will end up linking only to a particular production. I created Template:ibdb show which goes to the show query. Even if a show has only one production, there are different numbers for the show and for the title queries. So it would not be easy to simply switch from one template to the other. I think it would make sense if there was an ibdb production template which would operate like the title one does now, and if everything that uses the title template now migrated to the ibdb show template. One advantage of the current use of the ibdb title template, however, is that the page you arrive at has information about the production, whereas the show template has only information about a particular show. --Larrybob 21:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Some Good News

Two things of interest:

  1. The new musicals infobox is at {{Infobox Musical 2}}. Go check it out and (if nobody objects) start putting it into articles!
  1. There is a (proposed) Article Structure at WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Structure (formerly WikiProject Musical Theatre/General. Check it out and comment on the talk page there!

--omtay38 23:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Your new category series on musicals by year points to musical which is a disambiguation page . I don't know for sure where you want it to point musical theatre or musicals(or even musical film but I think not) I don't know how to fix it either. I'm focussing my mild obsession with disambiguation musical among a few others so it would save an old woman's hair if one of you good people who know how could fix it. Argyll Lassie 16:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

New infobox questions

Hi, I've been posting questions about infoboxes in other less-used discussion pages but haven't heard anything back, so I'm repeat-posting here:

1. Production-specific info: Since the new userbox omits production-specific info that used to be in the old userbox (e.g. choreographer, scenic design, lighting, etc.), with regards to article structure, are we incorporating this information into the "Productions" section of the article, leaving its inclusion optional, or just leaving it out entirely?
IMO, a really complete article ought to have it (maybe in the introduction?), but to get an article going, I don't think it's necessary that the technical credits be given. It seems kind of unbalanced to say who the lighting designer is, when you don't even have a synopsis yet, etc. I agree that it should not be in the userbox. --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
If the show had multiple productions, I figured lighting etc. could go under the "Broadway" (or whatever) category of "Productions", since it's production-specific, and it wouldn't be too up front sequentially. However, if there was only one production and no production section, I agree it would be awkward to stick that sort of info right up front. --Drenched 08:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
2. Detailed infobox instruction: Would it be a good idea to have more explicitly detailed notes on this page as to what does/does not belong in each section of the infobox and how to format it (e.g. our Article Structure page)?
Sure, if you have ideas why not write 'em down, and people can look them over. --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
3. Awards: What level of obscurity/reputability do listed awards have to have? Are Obie Awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards major enough to be listed? Should we make a list of standard acceptable awards to put in this section?
Good idea--we should establish which awards are notable. I think defintely Tony, Obie, Outer Critics and Drama Desk. Any others? What about national awards in other countries? --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
4. Basis: Are we only filling in this field if the musical is directly based on a book/movie/etc. like H2S, Ragtime, or Wicked, or do loose adaptations of operas etc. count (e.g. Rent, Miss Saigon)? I'm going to assume the latter now.
I agree. Why not say what the source material is, and whether it is the same plot or loosely adapted, or what. More information is better here, I think. --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Productions: Does this include all pre-Broadway workshop versions, concerts, special performances, and all tours (both equity and non-equity)?
Well, the dividing line between "History" and "Productions" may be blurry, sometimes. I would describe the West End opening, but then note that it was produced at a small venue in the provinces as a tryout on such and such a date. But if it was just a workshop, I might put the info into "History". I don't think it's a tragedy either way, as long as the important info is described in one place or the other. --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I need some clarification/hand-holding! =P --Drenched 23:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I put in my 2 cents above. --Ssilvers 01:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I made a rough outline of the detailed infobox contents in my sandbox. So please help clarify certain sections & assess to see if it's an acceptable set of norms for this infobox usage. Sorry if that made no sense, time for bed. --Drenched 08:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

September checkin

Might as well check up with each other about things. I've been creating a few articles - mainly short start/stubs, but still - for previously redlinked musicals and actors/actresses. A list can be seen on my userpage - it isn't organized yet, I should really do that. Crystallina 15:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I am continuing to put up articles and stubs for older British musicals, composers, lyricists, librettists and actors from 1890 to about World War I. -- Ssilvers 16:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious about the scope of two categories: [Category:Broadway musical] and [Category:Broadway play] -- should each contain only notable shows, or exhaustive lists of all examples within the category that have articles? I've also been updating and correcting random stuff here and there. MichaelCaricofe 06:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

All the articles should have category tags, so the categories should automatically be populated with all the musicals that have articles. If you see a musical or play that does not have the necessary categories, definitely add the category. If you're not sure how, ask for help. Categories are different from lists. A list can contain items that do not have WP articles yet, while a category can only have items in it that have articles. Did I answer your question? -- Ssilvers 15:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes to flagship article

An anonymous editor recently added more to the intro of the Musical theatre article about what is a musical and how to distinguish it from opera. I don't think that it helps the article to begin with this rather long discussion of what a musical is or isn't and the difficulty of defining it. Why not start out with a relatively short and snappy definition, and put the discussion of the difficulty of defining exactly what a musical is lower down under the table of contents? Opinions? --Ssilvers 18:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. --Usgnus 18:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I concur. --Drenched 22:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, I have moved the info into two paragraphs in the "Introduction" under the TOC and copy edited it. See what you think. --Ssilvers 00:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I think maybe the intro can stand to be a *little* longer - most articles tend towards more than less there. Crystallina 17:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, but it think it is more important to start out by describing some general-interest facts about musicals before launching into the controversy over how to distinguish musicals from opera. Take a look now. I have moved some info into the intro that I think is of more interest to a newbie to the subject. Feel free to "mercilessly" edit it, as we are told at the bottome of every edit page. I also thought it looked naked without an image, so I put in the Fantastiks, but feel free to use something else if you like. I thought The Fantastiks might be one we can agree on because its record run seems unlikely to be broken for a long time. --Ssilvers 18:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Do we have any pictures of performers on stage? If not, that's ok (most theatres have strict rules against that sort of thing and copyright on the pictures that exist) but it'd illustrate the concept better than a logo would. Crystallina 20:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Peer review time

Based on the discussion above, it appears that Show Boat is a pretty good candidate for the WikiProject to try and improve to FA. It should also spur some activity. It hasn't been peer reviewed yet. I think it should be. Any objections? Crystallina 23:05, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

It can't hurt to get a peer review. -- Ssilvers 15:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Nope. The user who contributed most it seems to be inactive (no edits for a few months), so I'm wondering if I should leave a note or just go ahead and submit it. Crystallina 23:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the article. It's a pretty impressive article, except for two things. The first, which might be dealt with easily (or you can disagree with me) is that I'm not sure the first paragraph of the intro is true, or else it is not clear what the innovation is that is mentioned. How is Show Boat distinguished from Rose-Marie, The Desert Song, The Student Prince and the other sentimental operettas of the '20s? Secondly, there is no discussion of the creation (background/history?) of the show -- how did it come to be written? Other than that, it is a really good article, and certainly ready for peer review. It's up to you whether you want to leave a note or not. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 02:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The Pirate Queen

Recently The Pirate Queen opened for it's pre-Broadway run in Chicago. The Wiki page entitled to the musical has not been edited since before it opened several months ago. I am sure you all have much better things to do, but having seen the musical now I would very much like to tweak the page a bit and add a plot summary, as well as fix Stephanie J. Block's page so that she can have some credit for her role. I would personally take on the project myself. All I need is a say so from you guys! WickedWitchoftheWest 10:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Go right ahead! When you are finished, if you want a second pair of eyes, post a note here asking for someone to review. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers 15:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I watched the musical recently in Chicago, and added a plot summary myself since I saw it hadn't been done yet. I also cleaned up some of the rest of the article and added some more info. Please feel free to review. Cheers. --E. Nichols 07:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Good job. I made a few copy edits, but if you don't agree with any of them, feel free to revert. I don't think plot summaries need to state that there is an overture and an entr'acte. Also, I'd say you don't need the sentence at the top that says that the plot comes from the Playbill summary, but I left it in for now. Instead, the playbill summary should be mentioned in the list of references, I think. Thanks for adding the info! -- Ssilvers 15:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Ssilvers. About the sentence at the top -- I wa sa little worried since there was exact quoting in the plot summar... Do I need to reword everything, or is a reference enough? That's why I had the disclaimer sentence.... if unnecessary it would be nice to remove though. About the Overture/Entr'acte, I agree it was sort of weird to have them in the plot summary. Would a separate section listing all the musical numbers (with the characters involved in each song), for instance, be appropriate? I'd like to list all the songs in the show including the Entr'acte -- and there were others missing from the plot summary too. --E. Nichols 06:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The Musical Theatre Project Aricle guideline (Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Structure) says that if the synopsis lists musical numbers, then you don't need a separate list of musical numbers. Since most musicals have an overture and entr'acte, I don't think we'll miss these, and they don't really add much info. Are all the other major numbers mentioned? As to the synopsis, yes, I would rewrited any quoted passages in your own words, and then delete the reference to Playbill. Regards, -- Ssilvers 15:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much... will do. Just what I needed to know. I'll make sure I didn't miss any major musical number when I do the revision. --E. Nichols 03:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 23:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Portal

Do we have a portal? Crystallina 04:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Appears not. I'd like us to have one but it simply isn't viable unless we suddenly become active as a project again... Crystallina 04:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It's too bad that the project is so inactive. People are updating individual musicals' articles from time to time, but they're not joining the project, and the guys who were so gung-ho last summer seem to have dropped out. Maybe if we added assessment tags to the articles it would draw interest? I don't have the technical ability to do it, but I'm talking about an assessment tag like we have on the G&S articles--see the Iolanthe talk page, for instance. -- Ssilvers 05:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Not sure how effective assessment tags would be - they require assessment to be useful, and that slowed down too. Crystallina 04:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I just stumbled across this page and until now didn't reralize there's a semi-organized Wikipedia musical theatre project. I've added my name to the list of participants . . . must anything else be done to "join"? If you check out Original Articles at [1], you'll see I've written a few dozen articles about musicals in the past couple of months, as well as amended quite a few that needed repair work and/or enhancements. SFTVLGUY2 16:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest adding cast lists...

I was browsing some musicals, and something that would have been really helpful is a list of required roles for the play, and their importance. I'm sorry that I don't have the available time to join this project, but I am making this suggestion because I believe it will contribute to the overall quality of musical theatre articles. 69.19.14.36 00:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

  • The problem with this is that Wikipedia articles generally try to avoid embedded lists. Plus, "importance" is subjective. You know the line, "There are no small parts..." Crystallina 02:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Many of the articles on musicals do have a list of roles or characters. The plot synopsis should make it clear which roles are the most central to the shows. -- Ssilvers 05:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Camelot help

I looked up Camelot hoping to find a nice, concise summary of the plot line. Rather than that, the entire article is an unsourced rant about how hard it was to produce and that it broke up Lerner & Lowe and killed Moss Hart! Please, can somebody familiar with the play help bring this article up to Wikipedia standards? My local community theatre is producing it between now and April and I would expect many of the attendees as well as cast members will be looking to Wikipedia for some background on this classic. Thanks! Estreya 17:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup, it was pretty bad. I just did a clean-up on the article, but if you want to get the background history section right, you'll have to do the research. -- Ssilvers 19:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Wow, Ssilvers, you are awesome! Thanks so much for such a quick fix! I will add to it as I can. :) Thanks! Estreya 18:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


Wicked Synopsis?

There is a heated discussion on the Wicked talk page discussing how the synopsis is ridiculously long and horribly too revealing of the play. There is even probably some copyright infringement. I request permession to clean it up, delete some things, and give it a nice, short overveiw. WickedWitchoftheWest 16:48, 16 March 2007

Yes, it is too long. I'd say it should only be half as long, so yes, go ahead and slim it down in your own words, which should cure any copyright problems. However, I disagree that summaries should not be "too revealing". This is an encyclopedia, not an advertisement for the show. Our articles should summarize all the important parts of the plot. The spoiler tags are there to let anyone know that if they don't want to know how it ends, they should not read the synopsis. Also, a very short overview can go in the article's introduction. The Synopsis section, on the other hand, should just launch into the summary. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 02:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Der Glockner von Notre Dame

The following 2 articles appear to be talking about the same thing:

Can somebody try to merge them? I would myself if I had more info about this Germain musical, but I don't. Thank you very much.--Endroit 00:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I fixed it and added a song list, but someone needs to do some research and expand the article. -- Ssilvers 04:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Peter Pan (musical)

I created this article this evening. Someone wanna take a look at it and assess it for me? --DrGaellon (talk | contribs) 22:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • It's a fairly decent start. Not sure how much more can be dug up on it though. I didn't see anything glaring. Crystallina 18:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Information deleted from Wikipedia articles

User:SFTVLGUY2 routinely deletes synopses from WP Musicals articles. He also cuts out headings, infoboxes, character lists, cast information, external links and other information and puts the background and production information, together with a one-paragraph description of the plot, into a long, unbroken introduction. I have referred him to the guidelines at WP:LEAD or in our article structure guidelines, Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Structure, both of which were developed by a WP:CONSENSUS of editors. For examples, see his edits to:

I believe that this is a serious problem and will continue to add to this list if he continues to delete information from Musicals articles. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 15:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand what he's doing though. I looked at the synopses of both of the articles in question and they needed cleaning up; the tone was off, overly colloquial, etc. However, it would have been better just to revise it rather than cut it altogether.
And synopses are necessary, really. For a good example, Porgy and Bess comes to mind. Crystallina 04:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Please note the interesting discussion at Talk:New Girl in Town. -- Ssilvers 16:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Save the Images, Please!

If there is anyone reading this page who is good at writing "fair use" rationales for images, there are a number of images in danger of being deleted, including Wizard of Oz images. Please see the warnings at User talk:SFTVLGUY2. Can anyone save them? I'm a bit technologically challenged. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 15:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

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