Talk:Gorilla Repertory Theatre Company

I guess if we remove the phrase "high-quality" that would get rid of the dispute right? --Pboyd04 19:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Is this the shortest "neutrality disputed" entry?!


 * I revamped the page completely - I think I've removed any POV. --Brian Olsen 19:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed information
Recently, some info was removed from this article, based on an anonymous email complaint - here's the difference:. I've been asked not to re-add it because I've worked with the company and to instead place my concerns here. I can understand rewording the bit about the company ending in 2002 and then having a brief season in 2003 - changing it to just ending in 2003 (I had been thinking of doing that myself, but wanted to keep in the info that Chris Sanderson, the artistic director, had announced that 2002 would be the last season, then mounted two shows the next summer). But I'm not sure why the later info - concerning the company reforming in 2007 with an indoor production of Henry V was removed. The text now suggests that the company was in continuous operation, but it did indeed shut down for three years. All of this was cited, and the article now contains incorrect information. Is it all right to remove correct, sourced, non-libelous information because of an anonymous complaint? It's reading more like an ad for the company than an article right now. --Brian Olsen 00:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

OTRS action
WP:OTRS ticket: 2007052110004631

Brian, Regarding the removal of content:

1. This source,, did not support the text in the article. 2. This source:, did not support the text in the article.
 * Article text: "Although 2002 was the last full season for the original company as a whole, founding artistic director Christopher Carter Sanderson mounted two individual productions in the summer of 2003 under the Gorilla Rep name"
 * Source:"Though I thought last year was supposed to be Gorilla Rep's final season, they're back this summer with two outdoor shows: their traditional production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a new play titled Fool, by Victor Kaufold. You can find them doing it up for free in the southwest corner of Washington Square Park, Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. Theater you can smoke to."
 * Article text: "Sanderson hopes to produce the 2008 production under an Off-Broadway contract - a first for the company."
 * Source: "Most theater artists believe they’ve sacrificed some comforts for the stage. But if they were to compare themselves to Christopher Carter Sanderson, head of the Gorilla Repertory Theater Company, they’d suddenly see those commitments as mere casual hobbies. Gorilla Rep, which turns 15 this season, has a devoted following for its high-energy outdoor Shakespeare in various city parks. Sanderson, 42, recently opened his free, uncut version of Hamlet at the Times Square Arts Center in midtown. To ensure that it will return next year in a bigger Off Broadway production, the director has employed an unusual fund-raising method: enlistment in the Navy and deployment to Iraq. TONY talked to Sanderson just days before he expected to be called up."

If you want to use these sources to improve the article, please stay close to the sources. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Re 1: If I reword the sentance to make it clear that, although 2002 was announced as the last season, there was another two-show season in 2003, would that work? I can also add sources from 2002 specifically referring to that year as the last season, if this author's "last year was supposed to be the last" isn't enough.
 * And re 2: Although the paragraph you quoted doesn't back up my text, the rest of the article does. Unless I'm missing what part of that sentence you see a problem with - I'm assuming it's the "first for the company" part. The interview seems to make it clear that taking a play Off-Broadway is new for the company:
 * "We need a year to do it Off Broadway, in terms of the contracts for the artists. We’re trying to up the quality of what we’re offering."
 * Do you need a source specifically referring to the previous seasons being off-off-Broadway? I guess I can see that this might be a bit too interpretive: he doesn't come flat out and say Off-Broadway is new for the company, but it seems self-evident to me - he wouldn't be asked about it if it was something they've done before, and he's taking a job in the military specifically to pay for it. Still, if it's not enough and I can't find another source, couldn't we just remove "a first for the company"?
 * I'm not trying to be difficult, but I just want to include important information, and the fact that the company was announced to be shutting down in 2002 (even though it went one more year), and then was started again in 2007, is important. --Brian Olsen 05:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Let me be frank with you, Brian. You need to stay very close to the sources, avoid editorializing, avoid WP:OR, and given your situation, be extremely cautious when editing this article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

the company didn't dissolve
Hello. The company didn't dissolve. As I make clear in the TimeOut article you refer to, 9/11 was very, very traumatic for me and the company. Yes, I announced that the company was to be disbanded but, leagally speaking, I did not dissolve the corporation (it is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit) and ecided, again as I make clear in that interview, to try to rebuild. Call me troubled, call me waht you like, call me wrong but I did not dissolve the company. So, from where I'm sitting, this looks like a real agenda to say Gorilla Rep dissolved. It didn;t. I may have said it was going to, but I changed my mind and kept it going. Further, there are tons more articles and reviews, positive and negative that could be sources here ad I don't understand why these ones have been chosen. Yes, linking to all of them would be a sort of positive message - but, it would also be a true message in that we've been written about a lot. Also, the company spells the word "theater" in its name and is registerd as "Gorilla Repertory Theater Company, Inc." and I know that is confusing because my publisher, Routledge, insisted on spelling it differently in the title of my book. WHy you link to the Gporilla Rep Manifesto and not to the book also seems baised to me. Like it, some have, or dislike is as some have, I did write the book and it is published by a reputable publisher. On the subject of Off-Braodway, you have ignored Occam's Razor - we have done a few Off-Broadway contracts in the past but want to do more and pay actors more consitently. That's the simple and true answer, not some kind of spin to occlude the fact that we haven't done them in the past. Finally, not all of our shows are environmental, so calling us based in a populist, environmental aesthetic would be correct - or at least acknowledig the successful productions we have mounted inside theaters. I suppose it would be too much to ask that we have an entry with different catagories and areas of the company's development like wiki does for otehr theater companies. Someday, someone will tell me who and why the folks who make wiki have it in for Gorilla rep and then I'l understand. Till then, I'll just have to keep trying to provide the highest quality roductions of classical dramatic material to people where they are for free - and sometimes charging them for tickets, giving classes, and launching tours to support that mission. Yours from the Persian Gulf, Christopher Carter Sanderson 213.42.23.70 (talk) 11:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)