Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan

This project has been formed to help improve the Wikipedia articles related to Gilbert and Sullivan and to add new articles within its "Scope" described below. For future reference, you can easily reach this page via the shortcut WP:G&S.

To find out what articles we collaborate on, see Scope and Articles below. See our discussion page here to see our past discussions and to ask questions or discuss project work. For Article Assessments, visit our assessment department.

If you would like to help, consider looking at the To do lists, including articles for expansion and new article opportunities below. 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.

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

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

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
 * WikiProject Comedy

Participants

 * Marc Shepherd
 * Ssilvers
 * Derek Ross
 * Tim riley
 * shsilver (not the same as ssilvers, above)
 * jmptdc
 * mdcollins1984
 * Anivron
 * Moreschi
 * Scott Farrell
 * Wehwalt
 * Broadwaygal
 * Jack1956
 * Rosuav
 * A More Perfect Onion
 * VasilievVV
 * Sharon Cogdill
 * Cassianto
 * Sharkli
 * Figaro
 * Clockery
 * Javert2113
 * Paul Sinasohn
 * floyd23
 * SandyGeorgia
 * SandyGeorgia
 * SandyGeorgia

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 (this article has been rated a Featured Article).
 * Richard D'Oyly Carte (this article has been rated a Good Article).
 * D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (this article has been rated a Good Article).

Other articles
Wikipedia also has articles for:


 * All fourteen of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. See Savoy Opera.
 * Our articles on Thespis, Trial by Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore are each Featured Articles. Other Featured Articles:  Creatures of Impulse.


 * Savoy Opera – this article discusses what works can be considered "Savoy Operas", and gives information about the works presented at the Savoy Theatre


 * Helen Carte, Rupert D'Oyly Carte, Bridget D'Oyly Carte and Stanley Boulter


 * Every opera that Arthur Sullivan wrote with other collaborators and most of his major choral works. See: Operas by Arthur Sullivan.


 * All of the operas and musical burlesques that W. S. Gilbert wrote with other collaborators, his Bab Ballads and more than half of Gilbert's non-musical plays. See: Bibliography of W. S. Gilbert and List of W. S. Gilbert dramatic works.


 * Many of the historically important Gilbert and Sullivan performers.


 * Many of the historically important people associated with Gilbert and Sullivan or their operas.


 * The curtain raisers that played together with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the Savoy Theatre, as well as the other works that played at the Savoy Theatre under the management of Richard D'Oyly Carte or Helen Carte. See Savoy Opera.


 * The London theatres historically associated with Gilbert and Sullivan. See the main Gilbert and Sullivan category.


 * The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, a three-week annual G&S festival each summer.


 * The Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan.


 * A number of the professional opera or repertory companies that regularly perform G&S, such as (alphabetically): Carl Rosa Opera Company, English National Opera, New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, Ohio Light Opera and Opera della Luna.


 * Articles about a number of professional companies that were known for performing G&S in the past, but have closed or stopped performing G&S, such as: J. C. Williamson, Gilbert and Sullivan for All, Light Opera of Manhattan, American Savoyards, Light Opera Oklahoma, Light Opera Works, Skylight opera theatre and Washington Savoyards.

Existing articles for expansion/development
The following articles are candidates for expansion and development:

Major articles for expansion/development

 * The Gilbert and Sullivan article is ready to be improved to a WP:Featured Article.
 * Many of the G&S opera articles need a better and more detailed historical background section. For good examples, see Trial by Jury, Thespis (opera) and H.M.S. Pinafore.

Other articles for expansion/development

 * Several of the articles for Gilbert's other non-Sullivan works need more thorough synopses or background information. For example, The Mountebanks and Princess Toto could use expansion.  (See /Opera articles for our style guideline).
 * J. C. Williamson, Washington Savoyards, Ohio Light Opera, Opera a la Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan for All and other professional G&S groups' pages need to be better referenced.
 * 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 refined or expanded.
 * The Savoy Theatre, Opera Comique and Royalty Theatre articles could be better harmonised with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company article.
 * 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 another editor's eyes.
 * The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens needs a "musical analysis" section and, perhaps, other expansion
 * Wikisource:Author:Arthur Sullivan and Wikisource:Author:W. S. Gilbert give an idea of what 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 then be summarized in Gilbert's article.
 * Thomas German Reed
 * William Greet, an impressario and manager of the Savoy Theatre under Helen Carte.
 * Composers articles need expansion (with WP:Reliable sources added), e.g., [[Frederic Clay, Edward Solomon (See Savoy Opera for names of others).
 * Librettists articles need expansion, e.g., Basil Hood, Henry Pottinger Stephens and B. C. Stephenson (See Savoy Opera for names of others).
 * Many of the major G&S performer articles could use expansion and better referencing - For starters,their obituaries in The Times should be added.

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. See also WP:MUS, WP:ENT, WP:BIO and WP:ORG.

Below are suggestions for new articles that are needed to round out the G&S coverage on Wikipedia.

Works

 * We could use articles on some more of Sullivan's most successful songs and possible one or two of his orchestral pieces that we do not yet have. You can use The Absent-Minded Beggar, The Masque at Kenilworth or Te Deum Laudamus (Sullivan) for examples.
 * We need articles on Gilbert's most successful short stories. You can use Creatures of Impulse as a structure guideline.
 * For opera articles, use H.M.S. Pinafore as an article structure guideline.

Opera companies

 * We have articles on many of the professional G&S repertory companies but are missing on Somerset Opera, Grim's Dyke Opera, Cotswold Savoyards, and probably others. Please list any others here that you know of.

People

 * We have articles on most of the key G&S performers (see our expansion/development opportunities above), but there are still some conductors, directors and choreographers of the D'Oyly Carte opera company, and other people associated with G&S who could be added.

Miscellaneous

 * We need articles describing G&S scholarship today and the major G&S museum collections and other principal G&S sources available for G&S enthusiasts.

General strategy and discussion forums

 * /Categories
 * /Opera categories
 * /Opera articles

Infoboxes in articles
The members of the G&S project discourage using infoboxes at the top of biography and opera articles within the scope of this Project, as they generally contain only repetitive information and interfere with the placement of images at the beginning of articles.


 * An extensive relevant discussion from 2011 is at Talk:Richard D'Oyly Carte. -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Templates

 * G&S navigation template
 * Gilbert and Sullivan, which expands to


 * Talk-page notice for articles
 * G&S-project, which expands to


 * Talk-page notice for categories
 * G&S-project, which expands to


 * Terminology template
 * Comicopera, which expands to

Userbox

 * User G&S, which expands to

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

We already have:
 * List of musical compositions by Arthur Sullivan
 * List of W. S. Gilbert dramatic works
 * Bibliography of W.S. Gilbert
 * List of Bab Ballads
 * Savoy opera

Possible lists for creation:
 * a Complete list of D'Oyly Carte-produced works (Savoy Opera only includes pieces that played at the Savoy. Some pieces were played only on tour.)  See here.
 * a list of museums, libraries and other institutions or collections where there is a substantial collection of unique or very rare Gilbert and/or Sullivan materials.

Notes on web-sources
/Marc Shepherd's Gilbert and Sullivan Discography