Talk:Nederlander Theatre/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Gazozlu (talk · contribs) 12:23, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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Pending

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   The article is compliant and is readable and easily understandable. The part about Design#Auditorium is a bit unclear about what is meant with raked, what slopes upward and downward, and why the part sloping upward would make the orchestra more visible. The section History#Shubert ownership and sale#1940s and 1950s is rather actually a list of performances and some details about those performances. It seems like these would be better as a list outright which would make it easier as well to scroll through the list by dates. In general also much of the history section, which is the bulk of the article, is long because of the listing of performances. This makes the article seem much longer and less digestible than it really is. (Also there is a lot of use of the phrase "this prompted")

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Depends on if you will change some of the history section to lists.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   No issues here.

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   Reliable sources.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Everything is substantially referenced with in-line citations.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Ok

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Yes, but quite weighted towards the history of performances and not that much about the building.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   Ok

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Neutrality is not as much of an issue in this type of article, in marts that it does matter the article is generally neutral.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   No edit wars.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Decently illustrated

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Missing interior images/diagrams which would be useful to illustrate layout of the seating and the location of balconies and orientation of boxes etc... in the design section. Maybe see if you can find material but if you can't its generally ok and a pass.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Overall, comprehensive and rather long article. See if you can make it a bit more digestible however. In the second half of the section Design#Auditorium is where the article starts to become less interesting to read and rather resorts to a listing of features with minimal explanation of why said features are significant or important. Same goes for the history section, although the changes in ownership and the struggles faced, and management decisions, under the time of each owner are rather interesting, the listing of performances that gets between that content would probably make the casual reader give up before reading the whole thing and getting the real story on the history of the ownership.

   Thanks for the comments. I will rearrange the design section later to make it easier to read. When I rewrote this article recently, I could not find any images of the interior.

   However, the productions are much more relevant to the theater's history than the ownership is. I'd argue that the ownership is quite minor, since owners buy theaters for the sake of staging plays and musicals there, not for the sake of owning the theater (in contrast to commercial buildings where owners buy buildings to own them). The other articles in List of Broadway theaters follow this format, so I do not think the coverage will be complete or balanced if I focused mainly on ownership history. My viewpoint is that readers will want to know more about the productions that have been staged here (as with other theaters). Epicgenius (talk) 12:50, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I see from the other articles that they indeed do talk about the performances staged there alot. But in this article there are sections such as:

In late 1945, the National hosted another Lerner and Loewe musical, The Day Before Spring, which ran for 165 performances. This was followed in 1946 by the revue Call Me Mister, which lasted over a year at the National before relocating. The theater next hosted the tragedy Medea with Judith Anderson, which ran for 214 performances. The National then hosted an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment in 1947, as well as revivals of Tonight at 8:30 and Macbeth in 1948, all of which had relatively short runs.
The National's next hit was Charles Gaynor's revue Lend an Ear in late 1948. This was followed the next year by Clifford Odets's The Big Knife, as well as a revival of Caesar and Cleopatra featuring Cedric Hardwicke and Lilli Palmer. In 1950, the theater featured live performances by Les Ballets de Paris and a revival of King Lear with Louis Calhern. A revival of The Constant Wife, featuring Brian Aherne, Katharine Cornell, and Grace George, arrived at the theater the following year. Tennessee Williams's play Camino Real was staged at the National in early 1953, and the comedy of manners Sabrina Fair opened later the same year. The National hosted the play Inherit the Wind starting in 1955. It seems like of you want to include such information it would be more digestible formatted as a list because this is just a list anyway. Gazozlu (talk) 13:19, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I see your point. There already is a list of notable performances further down in the article, though, but I suppose this can be rephrased a bit to make it more interesting. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:31, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

If you need to list them like that you can possibly swap to a bulleted list within the body of the paragraph. Such as over the next years the theater hosted the following performances:

• Performance A, (Spring) 1999 starring Joe Smith and running for 34 editions
• Performance B, (Winter) 1934 starring Bill Smith and Felicia Smith and running for 1090 editions
• Performance C, (Fall) 1945 starring Jan Smith and directed by Martin Scorsese running 345 editions.

Gazozlu (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

My concern is that this would violate MOS:USEPROSE, which says: Prefer prose where a passage is understood easily as regular text. Prose is preferred in articles because it allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context in a way that a simple list may not. It is best suited to articles because their purpose is to explain. Additionally, the "Notable productions" section is already in bulleted-list format; each bullet point contains the name of the production and the year that it debuted. The "History" section summarizes the productions in the "Notable productions" section while giving a little more detail. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

If it's already in the list then it might be better to cut them from the main paragraphs. They are written as prose but is is in effect just a list of performances, so it is understood better as a list I would say. If you want to keep them in it would probably be better like this:

Over then next few years the theater featured major performances such as: Lord of the Rings (1945), Harry Potter and the Backstreet Boys (1946), I wish i was a frog (1946), My Sweet Frog live (1947) and Lord of the Frogs (1948).

That takes less space and does not dedicate a whole sentence per performance. I would put the details of how many additions and other routine facts about the performances not in the prose but in the list section. Gazozlu (talk) 19:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I have trimmed some mentions of how many performances each show had (mostly if the show didn't last very long). However, ironically enough, the style of writing that you suggested is basically a list in prose format. For example, here's how I've modified one of the paragraphs:

• Prose, originally: In late 1945, the National hosted another Lerner and Loewe musical, The Day Before Spring, which ran for 165 performances. This was followed in 1946 by the revue Call Me Mister, which lasted over a year at the National before relocating. The theater next hosted the tragedy Medea with Judith Anderson, which ran for 214 performances.
• Prose, currently: During the mid-1940s, the National hosted several productions with over one hundred performances each. These included Lerner and Loewe's musical The Day Before Spring in 1945; the revue Call Me Mister in 1946; and the tragedy Medea with Judith Anderson in 1947.
• Notable productions:
  • 1945: The Day Before Spring
  • 1946: Call Me Mister
  • 1947: Anna Lucasta
  • 1947: Medea

The only difference between this paragraph's current prose and the "notable productions" section is that the prose consists of complete sentences and specifies a little more about the production. I understand your concern, but the previous prose gave a little more detail about each performance. However, if I implemented your suggestion, the article will lose some detail and actually will become just a list of performances, which is exactly the opposite of what either of us want.

Another side note is that, generally, most Broadway shows didn't run for more than a few hundred performances until the mid-20th century. If a show ran for more than one year, it was a big accomplishment. Conversely, before the mid-20th century, the least successful Broadway shows ran for only a handful of performances, and many shows only ran for a few months or so. Today, it's pretty rare to find a show that ran for only a few performances. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:45, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

That's right I don't want to lose that detail. Hmm, it's not so straightforward what is the best option. Let me check your updates. Gazozlu (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh I see that your latest edit is still from yesterday? Gazozlu (talk) 16:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Why not include the amount of editions and other information in the list ofNederlander_Theatre#Notable productions instead of in the prose as to not loose that info. Then you can refer to it in the text only in cases where the editions it ran for supplements what you are trying to portray in that paragraph over all? Gazozlu (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Regarding this comment, I forgot to respond yesterday; that comment was saved on my computer.

In relation to your concern about number of performances, I could probably add that to the "Notable productions" section. However, I only mention the number of performances for a small number of shows (13 at last count). This is particularly relevant for Rent, which lasted for five times as long as the theater's next-longest show, and maybe a few other productions. But the number of performances doesn't really matter for most of the remaining productions, as they were neither particularly long nor exceedingly short, which is why that number is only mentioned a few times in the prose.

I still think the "Notable productions" section should summarize the prose and contain only basic information, e.g. the production's name and the year it premiered. However, I'll consider adding other details, such as number of performances, for some of these productions. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:19, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

It wasn't my intention to have less details. You can include details and such and perhaps some of the details I saw you removed didn't necessarily need to be removed unless you had other reasons to remove them.

What I was actually thinking was, if it is a case where a performance ran for a couple hundred editions and this is relevant because of how long it ran, then say that more explicitly, not just it ran for X amount but "the performance was so popular that it ran for X amount of editions". And in cases where you still want to mention a detail like performances, or notable people it starred, then you can keep it as a prose-list like: From the years 1934 to 1938 the theater featured a series of performances; My friend dave (1934) which starred David Hasslehoff and ran for 34 editions, The Grapes of Rap (fall 1934) starring Ice Cube which ran for 99 editions, I got stung by a Bee (spring 1935),Help My Dad is Pregnant! (1936), Beriched(1937) and I had lunch Frida Kahlo (1938) which ran for the rest of the season with 233 editions. Gazozlu (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

In general you can think about reducing the list like feeling you get when reading the prose. Especially when there are multiple separate sentences without there being a good enough reason for the information in that sentence needing to be part of a separate sentence. This is not keeping it from being a generally good article as it stands now however it is one of the downsides/weaknesses of this article. Gazozlu (talk) 19:58, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining further. That is definitely doable - I will look over the article tomorrow to see how I can further refine the prose. – Epicgenius (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2022 (UTC)