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Matching Minds With Sondheim

By near-universal consensus, Stephen Sondheim was the greatest musical theater composer of his generation—celebrated, among other things, for the wit, sophistication, and intricacy of shows from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George. A less well-known avenue for his brilliant creativity was his lifelong fascination with designing and constructing intricate puzzles and games: from treasure hunts and crossword puzzles to parlor and board games.

Matching Minds with Sondheim is a journey into this rich but largely unmapped aspect of the composer’s creative life, illuminating how Sondheim’s playful designs delivered moments of clarity and connection for his friends and colleagues. For the first time, this book offers an enthralling tour of what Sondheim described as his “puzzler’s mind,” helping readers to better understand the man, his work, and—if they accept the challenge—themselves.

Gaming expert and theater fan Barry Joseph draws from over eighty years of Sondheim’s activities, collecting his extremely rare and never-publicly-seen puzzles and game designs, scores of original interviews with the celebrity friends who played them, deep dives into Sondheim-related archives from around the country, and analysis from both puzzle designers and theater professionals from around the world.

Matching Minds will do more than describe Sondheim’s work: It will allow readers to match minds with the maestro by attempting to solve Sondheimian puzzles and bring Sondheimian games into their own homes.

Pre-sale available now.

Reactions from early readers:

Matching Minds does justice to a man who was good at having fun. Readers will have an absolute blast with this book.”

“An essential read for anyone who wants to understand what made this creative genius tick.”

“This book reveals a little-known facet of Sondheim’s creative life and makes the compelling case that Sondheim’s genius was not limited to songwriting. Sondheim’s interest in puzzles and games has now been given its due, and readers will come away with an appreciation for how games influenced Sondheim’s writing and may also develop their own interest in puzzles and games.”

“You’ll see how Sondheim spent as much time finding the proper clue for a treasure hunt as he did for a lyric in Sweeney Todd, and you’ll discover a very human side to one of the singular minds of the last century. Not to be missed!”

Follow the latest on the book at MatchingMindswithSondheim.com and on Instagram.

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This is Daria Begley, long-time NYC correspondent for the Sondheim Society. This photo is from last May, at Below 54, preparing to listen to @melissa_errico_fairymom perform songs from her #Sondheim album.

Actually, this is a reflection of Daria in a phone. 

The phone is an old Motorola Droid that she won at the American Museum of Natural History in 2011, at a fundraiser for Friends in Deed. 

The cocktail party event (before dinner accompanied by Errico as well) was a treasure hunt designed by Stephen Sondheim: A Little Jurassic Treasure Hunt, which took place in the dinosaur Halls. 

Daria's team won the Hunt and, along with a number of other prizes, got to take home this phone, which no longer functions... but, OH, the stories it could tell!

#treasurehunt
In observance of the third anniversary of the passing of Stephen Sondheim, I am starting this video series (that will last about a year) to share some of the gifts he brought into the worlds... literally gifts he gave as Broadway Opening Night presents. (click in the bio for the full YouTube playlist, including a 27 minute playthrough with narration of this one).

From 1994 (Passion) through Company (2021), Stephen Sondheim looked to Stave, a Vermont-based jigsaw manufacturer, to produce personalized puzzles as his opening night gifts. 

For each show, the poster was turned into a thick-pieced, deviously complex wooden jigsaw puzzle, each gift personalized with the initials of the recipient designed into the puzzle pieces as an additional challenge and delight. 

I have been fortunate enough to have been provided access to one of the largest collections of these puzzles, through playwright @michaelmitnick, playwright, songwriter, and Sondheim aficionado.

In these videos I will share full-length videos of my building these jigsaws, explaining their brilliant designs, as well as speed-up videos like this one. To prevent spoilers I will avoid stating the name of the show and use, instead, its year of production. This one is from 2002.

These puzzles represent Sondheim's life-long interest in using puzzles to create moments of awe and clarity. I hope some of that comes across in the viewing. 

#sondheim @sondheimphotos @sondheimletters @stavepuzzles #jigsawpuzzle
If you subscribe to David Benkof’s Broadway Maven newsletter (and if you don’t, then you should) then today you saw that he worked with two crossword constructors to build a fun Broadway-themed puzzle (link in bio). 

As he wrote: “Crossword puzzles have long been a popular pastime among musical theater people, and several prominent Broadwayniks are published cruciverbalists (puzzle constructors), including Hugh Wheeler, Richard Maltby, Jr. (who is a MARQUEE subscriber!) and The Master himself. Barry Joseph, author of the forthcoming Matching Minds with Sondheim, even told me that had Sondheim "not had any achievements in musical theater, his passing in 2021 would still have noted mention in The New York Times obituaries" for his role in promoting cryptic crosswords in America.”

And I stand by my comment!

sondheim crosswords
A lot in one photo! This is me right now with Richard Maltby, Jr. I had just given him from @lego_nerd_puzzles (Andrew Parr) one of Stephen Sondheim’s issues of Games magazines from 2021 (that Andrew acquired at auction last June, and includes Andrew’s interview with Sondheim). In the photo we are holding the CURRENT issue of Games, open to the page showing Andrew’s current article about that auction, featuring photos from me, including one of me with Richard, together at the auction last June… which just happens to be a half block from the auction house itself!
The near final draft of the cover just came in. Loving it! Thank you all for your fantastic feedback, pushing it along towards a state of awesome. 

The dice are back, as is a new blackwing pencil (in tribute to Sondheim's preferred implement) and a cover dissolving into jigsaw pieces.
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© Copyright 2023 – Barry Joseph

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