Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan

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WP:G&S

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in the articles related to Gilbert and Sullivan. The project is also intended to complete or add new articles within its "Scope" described below. It is hoped that this project, and the discussions here, will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. For future reference, you can easily reach this page via the shortcut WP:G&S.

To find out more about what we have been doing, see Scope and Articles below. For Article Assessments, visit the assessment department.

If you would like to help, consider looking at the To do lists below, including clean-up tasks and new article opportunities below. You could also adopt an article. Feel free to add additional tasks or articles to these lists. If you would like to join us, please add your name to the list of participants.

Current discussions include: categories (discussion of G&S sub-categories), opera categories (discussion of how the operas should be categorized) and opera articles (discussion of how the opera articles should be structured.

For general information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject and Wikipedia:WikiProject/Best practices.

1 Scope
2 About this project
3 Articles
- 3.1 Main articles
- 3.2 Other articles
4 To do lists
5 General strategy and discussion forums
6 Infoboxes in articles
7 Templates
8 Userbox
9 Categories
10 Lists
11 See also

Scope

The scope of this project is:

W. S. Gilbert
Arthur Sullivan
The fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas, also known as the Savoy Operas
Other Works by W. S. Gilbert and Compositions by Arthur Sullivan
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and members of the D'Oyly Carte family.
Other people who worked closely with Gilbert and Sullivan, D'Oyly Carte or the Savoy Operas.
Performers who have spent a significant portion of their careers performing in the G&S operas
Professional companies (other than D'Oyly Carte) that regularly perform or performed G&S
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
Sources of G&S information or scholarship

About this project

Goal

To increase the accuracy, clarity, coverage and overall quality of articles related to Gilbert and Sullivan, their works, colleagues and lives.

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Opera (parent project)
WikiProject Musical Theatre

Participants

Marc Shepherd
Ssilvers
Derek Ross
shsilver (not the same as ssilvers, above)
jmptdc
GodolphincobbEsq.
mdcollins1984
Anivron
Moreschi
Scott Farrell
Wehwalt
Broadwaygal
Jack1956
Rosuav
Insearchofintelligentlife

Articles

Main articles

Gilbert and Sullivan (this article has been rated a Good Article).
W. S. Gilbert (this article has been rated a Featured Article).
Arthur Sullivan
Savoy Opera
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company

To do lists

Clean-up tasks

The following articles are candidates for expansion, re-organization, or clean-up:

Major articles

The articles on the Savoy Operas and other operas by G and/or S are of widely varying quality. See /Opera articles for discussion of how articles in this project should be structured.

Also:

The Gilbert and Sullivan article needs more in-line citatations. It is ready to be improved to a WP:Featured Article.
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company article needs more citations. It also needs to be harmonised with the Savoy Theatre, Opera Comique, and Royalty Theatre articles, among other relevant topics.
The Richard D'Oyly Carte, Helen Carte, Rupert D'Oyly Carte and Bridget D'Oyly Carte articles need to be polished and harmonised with each other and with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company article.

Other cleanup opportunities

W. S. Gilbert wrote six German Reed Entertainments from 1869 to 1875. Articles on each of them are linked from the German Reed Entertainment article, and most of these should be expanded.
Several of the articles for Gilbert's other non-Sullivan works are start-class articles and need more thorough synopses and/or background information. For example, The Mountebanks and Princess Toto could use cleanup and some expansion and tweaking.

(See /Opera articles for our style guideline).

J. C. Williamson, Washington Savoyards, Ohio Light Opera, Opera a la Carte, Opera della Luna, and other professional G&S groups' pages need to be expanded and/or upgraded.
Victoria and Merrie England's "Description of scenes" is weak.
The article on "Onward, Christian Soldiers" could use a discussion of its cultural significance. Wasn't it a Salvation Army theme song?
The Long Day Closes (song) could use a another editor's eyes.
The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens needs a "musical analysis" section and, perhaps, other contributions
Wikisource:Author:Arthur Sullivan and Wikisource:Author:W. S. Gilbert give an idea of how much isn't yet ready on the sister sites.

People: More work is needed on:
- Nancy McIntosh, especially a description of her later years living with the Gilberts. Also, some of this info should be summarized in Gilbert's article.
- William Greet, an impressario and manager of the Savoy Theatre under Helen Carte.
- Composers articles need expansion, e.g., Frederic Clay, Edward German, Edward Solomon, Frank Osmond Carr, Alexander Mackenzie, and Alfred Cellier (See Savoy Opera for names of others).
- Librettists articles need expansion, e.g., F. C. Burnand, Basil Hood, Henry Pottinger Stephens, and B. C. Stephenson (See Savoy Opera for names of others).

New article opportunities

Feel free to add an article on any relevant topic, as long as it is encyclopedic, adopts a neutral point of view, and is verifiable. Normally the best way to ensure verifiability and neutrality is to cite sources, rather than relying on what you merely believe to be true. Some participants also believe that articles should be "notable". See WP:MUS WP:BIO and WP:ORG. Below are suggestions for new articles that are needed to round out the G&S coverage on Wikipedia.

Works

A number of compositions by Sullivan do not have articles. These include:

The Light of the World (Sullivan) (1873)

Gilbert wrote some 80 operas and plays. Only about half of these have articles. Some of the most important Gilbert plays that still need their own articles include:

An Old Score (1869) (rewritten as "Quits!" in 1872)
The Gentleman in Black (1870 comic opera with music by Frederic Clay).
The Ne'er-do-Weel (1878) -- rewritten as "The Vagabond" after a few weeks
Gretchen (play) (1879) (one of Gilbert's favorites) See [1] and (p. 52) and [2] and [3]
Foggerty's Fairy (1881) Gilbert's science fiction play - like Back to the Future.
The Fairy's Dilemma (1904) -- WSG finally working out a lifelong obsession with pantomime & harlequinade

(See /Opera articles for our style guideline. For a working example of how these articles could be structured, see His Excellency).

Opera companies

Articles are missing on Somerset Opera[4], Essgee Entertainment?, Grim's Dyke Opera?, Cotswald Savoyards?, Gilbert and Sullivan for All and several other professional G&S performing companies. Please list any here that you know of.

People

Most of the key G&S performers and other people associated with G&S have been added (see "clean-up opportunities" above), but there are still some conductors, choreographers, and designers of G&S operas, and some composers, librettists and lyricists of the lesser Savoy Operas and curtain raisers listed at Savoy Opera that do not yet have articles.

Miscellaneous

There could be an article describing G&S scholarship today and the major G&S museum collections and other principal G&S sources available for G&S enthusiasts.

Adopt an article

Would you like to adopt an article? This would involve doing the research, writing, and finding public domain images to create or improve an article. Just pick an article from one of the "To do" lists above and start editing (see "clean-up tasks" and "new article opportunities" above). Of course, anyone can edit any article, even if someone had "adopted" it. But the idea of adopting an article is to focus for a while on a particular article until you feel it is as completely researched and referenced, and as well-written as you can make it, with a view of building up the number of high quality articles relating to this project. When you are finished working on an adopted article, leave a message on the talk page to let the other members of the project know you are finished, and they can look it over.

Adopted articles in progress:

Edward German: Anivron

General strategy and discussion forums

Infoboxes in articles

Following the Opera project policy, the G&S project discourages adding infoboxes at the top of articles, as they generally contain only repetitive information and interfere with the placement of images at the beginning of articles.

Templates

G&S Navigation Template

{{Gilbert and Sullivan}}, which expands to

v • d • e Gilbert and SullivanThe Triumvirate W. S. Gilbert| Arthur Sullivan| Richard D'Oyly CarteThe Gilbert and Sullivan Operas Thespis• Trial by Jury• The Sorcerer• H.M.S. Pinafore• The Pirates of Penzance• Patience• Iolanthe• Princess Ida
The Mikado• Ruddigore• The Yeomen of the Guard• The Gondoliers• Utopia, Limited• The Grand DukeOther Works, People and Related Matters Other Works by W. S. Gilbert• Other Operas by Arthur Sullivan• Other Music by Arthur Sullivan
People associated with Gilbert and Sullivan• Gilbert and Sullivan performers• Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan

Talk-page notice for articles

{{G&S-project}}, which expands to

This article is part of WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan, organized to complete and improve the Gilbert and Sullivanrelated articles on Wikipedia. You can participate by editing the article attached to this page or by visiting the project page, to join the project and see a list of open tasks. ??? This article has not yet received a ratingon the quality scale. ??? This article has not yet received a ratingon the importance scale.

Talk-page notice for categories

{{G&S-category}}, which expands to

This category is part of WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan, organized to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Gilbert and Sullivanand related topics. To participate, you can choose to edit the articles listed on the attached page, to create new articles, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Userbox

{{User G&S}}, which expands to

This user is a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Lists

"Lists" are unnecessary for items that are already included in "categories".

Possible lists for creation:

Complete list of Arthur Sullivan works, excluding operas (many of these will never have their own articles, so they will not be covered by categories)
a List of Bab Ballads
a Complete list of Savoy Operas (Savoy Opera only includes pieces that played at the Savoy. Some pieces were played only on tour.) See here.
a list of major G&S performing companies

Translation

Category