Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Structure/Archive 1

message: ::I'd also like to add a 'nay' vote to the idea of the table of actors. I think it presents too much potential for problems: people will inavariably add their favorite actors to the table, and it will grow and grow, and there will be debates and hurt feelings: "Why didn't you keep Actor X on the list? He's more notable than Actor Z!" Also, at least in terms of the Broadway productions, the IBDB has exhaustive lists of originals and replacements, so we could always just link to that. Perhaps if the table's contents could be restricted to the opening night casts, this could be done and remain controllable. Mademoiselle Sabina 16:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "table of actors" that I had in mind was something like this toward the bottom.  When I'd gotten to this article, it was just lists of the casts of various productions.  I didn't necessarily want to keep the information, but someone did a bit of work and I didn't want to get rid of it entirely.  —  MusicMaker 19:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That table is a nice way of presenting the cast information for multiple productions, but agree that there should be some guidelines (eg opening night casts only) to prevent these lists from spiralling out of control. Also, what about expanding the concept for the table to include non-actor roles, eg director? This is especially useful for revivals as opposed to franchised ("cookie cutter") remounts. Malfourmed 04:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've incorporated the idea of a table for non-actor roles in my suggestion for "Productions". Malfourmed 15:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Table of actors

message: : How about a section for box office/business? Malfourmed 04:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how encyclopedic such information would be, nor do I think it would make for very interesting reading.  —  MusicMaker 06:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I'm very interested in the economics of musical theatre and would argue it's as encyclopedic as anything else meriting inclusion in Wikipedia. I'm not suggesting we populate a box office/business section with week-by-week grosses from Playbill, but that notes such as the following hypothetical examples would be relevant: "The initial Broadway production of Show had a capitalisation of US$4M and grossed US$12.5M during its run." "Show broke broke the weekly house record during at the Whatever Theatre with a take of $1,041,395 during July 2005." "Investors in the long-running original production of Show received a 1,500% return on their investment." "Show did not recoup its investment during its West End season. In contrast, the subsequent UK national tour which simplified the set and cut two members of the ensembles was profitable." Incidentally, agree with moving Box Office/Business to being a sub-section under Reception (or whatever it's best called). Malfourmed 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we can find this information I'd certainly be interested. My philosophy for categories such as this is 'the more the better' in general. Crystallina 15:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Box office

message: There'll be times when we want to include some analysis of elements other than the music. For instance, an article about Into the Woods could easily include some discussion about how the book of the show weaves together different fairy tales and draws heavily upon Bruno Bettelheim's text The Uses of Enchantment. Or an article about The Lion King could go into more detail about the design of the puppets in the show. I suggest these can be added, on a case-by-case basis after the section on Music. -- Malfourmed (user talk) 05:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  I think that deciding on this structure is just a starting point: something that we think should be the least requirements for each article.  Even then, I don't think we're always going to use each section; I think including a section on the technical musical aspects of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat would border on mental cruelty.  As new sections present themselves, I don't think there's any need to automatically require a consensus on their inclusion -- unless their encyclopedicness is called into question.  —  MusicMaker 08:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think it should be a prime objective of the project to make a detailed 32,0000 word analysis of the "Joseph Megamix" its first feature article. Go go go Joseph!!! -- Malfourmed (user talk) 10:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL.  The "Music" section for Joseph... would contain this sentence: "It is the same song over and over for 94 minutes or until the audience's ears begin to bleed, whichever comes first."  —  MusicMaker 20:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section for other element analysis 

message: Everything is more or less consistent; should the problem of ambiguity arise, the article is Cats (musical).  One notable exception is The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical).  (The question had recently been raised on the talk page -- I defended the title by pointing out that there are several musicals based on that particular story.)  Should Candide (operetta) be Candide (musical)?  Should POTO be The Phantom of the Opera (musical)?
I can't think of any examples of musicals off the top of my head, but some titles, at least in their common usage, have the tendency to pick up a "The..." or, conversely, lose a "The..." or "A...." or "An....".  (The Messiah comes to mind....)  The title should be its given name, not it's common name.  
—  MusicMaker 23:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming Conventions

message: Since just about every musical comes from some other medium, should we include a section about the source material?  If the source is something well-known (ie La Boheme), we can go into detail about the adaptation and include a link to the article.  If it's less known (like Lilliom for Carousel), we can go into a little more detail about the source, itself.  —  MusicMaker 08:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've assumed that the source material information would go in the (Development) History section of the article. I wouldn't go into too much detail about the source material itself. Eg: "Liliom is a one-act play by Hungarian Ferenc Molnar (1878-1952). It was first produced in Hungary in 1909 and translated into English in 1921. It concerns Liliom, a tough, cocky carousel barker who falls in love with Julie, a young woman who works as a maid. The play was inspired by a domestic incident when Molnar's first wife upbraided him for slapping their daughter, a key event in the play.  Prior to its adaptation as Carousel Italian composer Giacomo Puccini had thought of setting it to music. " Rather I'd put that sort of detail into a separate article eg Liliom and only focus on the adaptation related issues. Eg: Rodgers and Hammerstein's source for Carousel was the play Liliom by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar. Key changes from the source material include changing the location to New England, USA and blah blah blah etc etc etc." (As it so happens, the Molnar entry contains a reasonable amount of information on Liliom the play.) -- Malfourmed (user talk) 10:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on Source Material

message: I just reviewed all the discussions about the list of numbers and do not see a consensus.   Some argued that the numbers should be embedded into the synopsis.  Others said that this would make the synopsis too long (an opinion that I think I share, at least for a complex show).  Then a suggestion was made to describe the numbers in the "music" section, but there was no agreement on what else should go in the music section, and IMO, the suggested example seemed like a short but confusing repeat of the synopsis.   
Here's my suggestion.   If the show is relatively short and simple, it is preferred to embed the names of the principal numbers in the synopsis.  However, if the show is complex, and naming the songs as you go would make the synopsis hard to read, then instead add a List of Principal Musical Numbers section, where you can omit every little reprise and just list the names of each principal number by Act.   The Music (or "Musical Analysis"?) section, I think, should contain either a discussion of what is notable about the musical history, writing of the music or other aspects of the music of the show (e.g., Hair: "...first time that rock music was extensively used in a musical, with the orchestration consisting of...."; Mamma Mia: "...consists entirely of a collection of pre-existing ABBA songs....") or a musicological or other analysis of the music of the show and/or how the music adds to the drama and importance of the show.  Can we get a consensus?  Ssilvers 05:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (From main project talk page) 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)
replies: text: Although I see your point about cluttering up the prose, I think that if the synopsis is not thorough enough to include all the musical numbers in it's prose, it's not thorough enough. Also I think that simple steps can be taken to still allow for easy readability of the synopsis (See The Producers (musical) although it has a list of musical numbers, it could easily be removed at no loss to the article). I feel that of all the other sections of an article about a musical, the synopsis is the most important. As seen in this project's discussions about the infobox, the details of each production are not nearly as important as the book and lyric writers. In the same way, because our articles are focused mainly on each musical as a piece of literature and not on singular productions, the synopsis becomes the most important part. Please feel free to disagree with me, but I think when users look up a musical on wikipedia, they would rather see all the musical numbers as they relate to the story line of the show rather than a chronological listing of musical numbers. Plus according to Wikipedia:Embedded list list making should be avoided because "Wikipedia is not a list". RENT has been one of the few articles on musicals I have found that has been elected for featured article status. One of the reasons it did not receive FA status was because of lists (see it's featured article discussion. Lists seem to be looked down upon by all style guidelines and the easiest way to get around the listing of musical numbers is to incorporate it into the synopsis. Please feel free to disagree / refute / discuss / oppose / anything else you can think of. Just my 2¢. --omtay38 08:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synopsis/Music/List of Numbers revisited 

message: Since discussion seems to be dying down here, I have proposed a page that we would put on our Article Structure page on my sandbox (here). I think that while we're working on it, we should leave it in my sandbox (or, more importantly, outside of the namspace of this WikiProject) so that when we finally reach a consensus, we can put the one and only version on the Article Structure page and not have to worry about people going back through the edit history and getting confused by the parts that have changed. Just to keep everything organized, when you get to my sandbox, feel free to put your comments at the bottom (following the instructions listed there) but do not edit the main section of the article. This way we won't have to worry about edit conflicts and things of that nature.
Because the structure of the Articles may be the most important thing we decide upon, the language of our Article Structure page should be carefully scrutinized to prevent future conflicts. So, without further ado, please head to my sandbox and please comment! Thanks! --omtay38 01:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed Article Structure Page

message: Hi there! I've been doing some musical assessments, but as I poke around some more around here, I'm starting to realize that maybe I shouldn't have been doing that yet? I saw that there wasn't a definitive style guide settled upon, so I was just doing a more general sort of assessment. I also tried to track down the discussion on musical article formats, but it's moved around a lot! I want to help out around here, but I'm not sure what I can/should be doing. I hope I haven't been doing things that are unhelpful. Oh, umm - by the way, I nominated Avenue Q for featured article status. That may have been a little hasty as well, but I do think it's one of our best articles! MrCheshire 20:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I have un-nominated it... but I think with a little work we could get it up to that level. MrCheshire 04:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm new here...