Talk:The Testament of Mary (play)

A fact from The Testament of Mary (play) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 June 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that recently-deceased Nora Ephron's last play and Tom Hanks' (pictured) Broadway theatre debut, Lucky Guy, is, along with The Assembled Parties, The Testament of Mary and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a 67th Tony Awards Best Play nominee?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Assembled Parties.

Wikipedia

Award overkill[edit]

Tony, I don't think we should be saying all the details of the awards twice in a row. If we have the table, we don't also need to mention names in the narrative introduction to the table. And why do we need to cite five references for the simple proposition that the show was nominated for 3 Tonys and 1 DD award? One should suffice for each set of awards. If you look at FA articles, like Carousel (musical) and The King and I, you will see that less ink is devoted to the awards. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, there were fewer awards to give ink to. You can cut down the number of refs per award, but cutting awards seems wrong. I don't think we should eliminate awards just because more prominent ones have been named. It is inconsistent with other types of theatrical performance. Stage awards should be included in a table just like TV and film awards are. If the other awards were non-notable, they would not have WP articles for the general award.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

These awards are not notable. Are you going to add "Billy's Awards"? The top awards are the Tony's and the Oliviers. I am skeptical about adding Drama Desk, but they at least have some reputation. Drama League and Critics' Circle are just not encyclopedic with respect to listing awards for shows. As I noted above, the FA articles do not mention them. You can tell that they are not important, for example, because the shows don't even mention them in their advertising. This is an encyclopedia. We need to present important information, not trivial info. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you feel that way, start a discussion at WP:THEATRE and/or WP:MUSICAL. We can set a policy rather than edit war at each article. Look at this year's top musical, Matilda the Musical. It has all kinds of second tier awards. Please start a discussion somewhere where a policy can be set.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:01, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, I didn't recommend that you find an example full of fancruft, stubby little paragraphs, lists and trivia. Do you think that article is any good at all? I suggested, instead, that you look at the FA examples. I'm not going to argue with you. If you can't see that this is non-notable fancruft, then the quality of the musicals articles will suffer because of you. I really don't have the time to try to convince you of every little sensible thing. I am just flabbergasted at the stuff that you want to put into articles. Gah! -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even see an awards section at The King and I. Please pursue a broader audience if you want to make changes. I am saying that in this year's set of articles, the most prominent one includes a lot of stuff. I am open to a discussion where consensus is reached. If you would prefer to rant and whine, not much is going to get resolved.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:50, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus has been reached in FA discussions. If you look at The King and I carefully, you will see how the awards info was resolved: the awards are described efficiently for each production in the productions section, and a table of awards has been put in a sub-article that has been cross-referenced. The reason for this is that the consensus was that awards tables are not important enough to go in the main articles for musicals and plays, because they are not very important to an understanding of the play or musical, so the discussion of awards should be concise and not take up a huge table. IT has also been discussed several times at WP:MUSICALS and the musical theatre talk page, for example here. The WP:MUSICALS article structure page says the following:

Awards (optional)

This section should contain a list of major awards. For musicals performed in the U.S., these awards are limited to the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, and Pulitzer Prize for Drama. For musicals performed in the U.K., these awards are limited to the Laurence Olivier Award, Evening Standard Award and the Critics' Circle Theatre Award. .... If this list becomes too long, it may be shortened to the most notable awards. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musical_Theatre/Article_Structure#Response seems reasonable. As you are somewhat aware, I don't really know that much about theatre. I certainly should not be the guy setting the standards on what are notable awards. Is there a sense that WP:THEATRE concurs with WP:MUSICAL on this issue? What about a case where a play hardly has any awards like Disgraced? Should we still remove the other awards even if it leaves us with a single award? What about Of Mice and Men (play) where the only award is not on the list?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to follow the WP:Theatre project and I stay away from the Opera project. I try to improve the musical theatre articles and especially the G&S articles. Wikipedia is just too big to try to do everything. But as far as the awards are concerned, the Tonys and Oliviers are by far the most prestigious. In NYC, the Obies are the key awards for small theatres, and the Drama Desk awards overlap the Obies and the Tonys. The other awards (except for the Pulitzer) are less prestigious and, IMO, unencyclopedic to name in the articles about musicals or plays. However, having said that, if a play did not receive any Tony or Drama Desk or Obie nominations, then one could say that it received a lesser award. But I still don't think you need to have a big fat table to say so. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After lengthy debate at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Theatre#Award_enumeration, there was no consensus that these awards should be omitted from the article. Both Outer Critics Circle Awards (Playbill, Variety, UPI, and Broadwayworld.com) and Drama League Awards (Deadline, UPI, Broadwayworld.com, Broadway.com, TheaterMania.com, and Playbill) are widely cited in WP:RS and there was no consensus that these sources should not be summarize in WP articles. I am restoring this content to the awards sections.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:25, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary[edit]

The article needs a plot summary section describing the setting and giving more detail about what Mary says. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree! Have at it, I'm done here.Flami72 (talk) 17:34, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]