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 but nonetheless key facet of his legacy was his lifelong obsession with games, puzzles, and all other manner of brain-twisting diversion--from crosswords and jigsaws to murder mysteries and party games--which he avidly pursued not only as a participant but as a deviser-creator. Following Sondheim's death in 2021, countless friends and collaborators shared fond remembrances of the scavenger hunts he would plan and the hand-crafted games he gifted to those he was closest to.

Matching Minds with Sondheim is a journey into this rich but largely unmapped aspect of the composer's creative life, from his teenage years sending puzzles to the New York Times and board games to Milton Bradley until his final years designing treasure hunts and visiting escape rooms. For the first time, it 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 theatre 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 (such as over 100 hours of interviews at Yale University that only became available last year), 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 master by attempting to solve some of Sondheim's best puzzles and provide the materials and instructions for bringing his games into their own homes.