A number of analysis reveals that doing psychological workouts can keep off dementia and the consequences of getting old, however can it truly make you higher at your job? Whereas it’s laborious to think about the late musical theater virtuoso Stephen Sondheim needing any form of further artistic stimuli, he actually had a widely known love of stimulating puzzles and video games.
And he didn’t simply play them. The Tony-winning composer behind Broadway hits akin to Sweeney Todd, Firm, and a heartwarming ditty about presidential assassins additionally cultivated a facet hustle as a designer of cryptic crossword puzzles and a frequent host of sport nights and scavenger hunts.
Barry Joseph, a sport researcher and designer and an adjunct professor at New York College, occurred to note a couple of years in the past that nobody had documented Sondheim’s area of interest ardour in a complete manner. So he determined to do it himself.
His new e-book, Matching Minds With Sondheim (Bloomsbury, October 2025), attracts from eight many years of Sondheim’s brain-teasing ventures. It consists of a mixture of uncommon and barely seen sport designs, archival analysis, and interviews with Sondheim contemporaries who performed alongside.
Quick Firm not too long ago caught up with Joseph to debate the e-book, what impressed it, and what he hopes readers will acquire from making an attempt to match minds with a musical legend. The interview has been edited for size and readability.
You have got a background as a sport designer and sport researcher. How did you get fascinated about writing about Stephen Sondheim?
Sondheim handed away in November of 2021. Which means March, 22, 2022, was his first birthday after he handed away. And my birthday is 2 days later. For a gift, my spouse received me three Sondheim-related books . . . recognizing that I and lots of different Sondheim followers had been nonetheless in mourning for having misplaced our musical hero.
One was a tutorial e-book that was a assessment of all Sondheim reveals, however from the attitude of postmodernism. That e-book left me pondering how fascinating it was to take a look at Sondheim by means of one lens. What different lenses may there be?
Then I learn Stephen Sondheim’s biography from the late ’90s by Meryle Secrest, which barely talked about him having something to do with puzzles and video games. It’s talked about right here and there, however in the index at the back of the e-book, there’s nothing for video games and nothing for puzzles—which tells you a large number about how significantly the subject was addressed.
And the third e-book was James Lapine’s Placing It Collectively—the oral historical past of Sunday within the Park With George. Lapine had met Stephen Sondheim proper after Sondheim had his critical disaster Merrily We Roll Alongside. For individuals who don’t know, it was a present that lasted beneath two weeks and was utterly decimated by the critics, placing Sondheim in a really disagreeable frame of mind—a lot in order that when he met Mr. Lapine, he was speaking about leaving the world of musical theater.
Lapine requested him what he was going to do subsequent, and he mentioned, “Possibly I’ll go into online game design.” That’s not what occurred! They ended up working collectively to do Sunday within the Park With George. Sondheim saved doing musical theater. The remainder is historical past, they usually by no means talked about it once more within the e-book.
Me, as an adolescent who grew up within the late ’70s, early ’80s, enjoying my Intellivision, my Atari, my Apple II Plus pc, I learn that and puzzled about Stephen Sondheim designing video games as a substitute . . .
I keep in mind Intellivision being the center stepchild of online game consoles. Not too many individuals had Intellivision.
I used to be a type of individuals. I at all times preferred issues being exterior the field. . . . In any case, I learn that, and that blew my thoughts. I assumed, “What’s Sondheim doing speaking about video games?” And I mentioned, “Is there one thing right here? Is there a subject right here? What’s the lens on Stephen Sondheim from a sport perspective?”
Ludology is the research of video games. And so I assumed, “Can one take a look at Stephen Sondheim from a ludological lens?” And on the time, I didn’t know if there’d be a lot of something. However after only a few weeks of some fast Google searches, what I discovered was that there have been plenty of fascinating, engaging tidbits.
He was the founding puzzle editor of New York journal in 1968. He created a cryptic crossword puzzle as soon as every week. His solely Hollywood-produced film, The Final of Sheila, a homicide thriller, entails all types of devious puzzles and video games.
And I saved coming throughout these different mentions of individuals speaking about going to his home for sport nights. And there was an interview in Video games journal in 1983. There’s a bunch of his little tidbits right here and there. After which the remainder of it I discovered irresistible.
So you discover all these breadcrumbs, publicly recognized info right here and there, and understand there’s no bigger physique of labor that has compiled all this?
I realized sufficient to know that there was one thing there, and that it wasn’t ready for somebody simply to jot down about. As a result of if it was, it could’ve been written.
Did you discover a second or many moments the place his love of making these puzzles knowledgeable his artistic work in a very particular manner?
The final chapter within the e-book is an evaluation of all of his reveals, it from a playful language. The place are puzzles and video games within the reveals? The place are they within the construction of the reveals, and the place do they present up within the course of of making the reveals?
And when you begin taking this lens at his theatrical work, you see it in every single place. The top of Sunday within the Park With George is a second the place this portray that we’ve been watching constructed on the stage immediately comes into focus. And it’s one which we all know the viewers has some prior data of—they count on to see a sure one thing. Instantly, all of it occurs in that second when all of the items all click on collectively.
It’s these moments that Sondheim usually talked about, the place you’re forming order out of chaos. And that’s primarily a jigsaw puzzle being constructed.
And I’m now fascinated about Merrily We Roll Alongside, which you talked about earlier. It’s informed backwards. That feels prefer it’s its personal puzzle.
Give it some thought from the viewers’s perspective, proper? If you find yourself watching one thing during which the impact occurs earlier than the trigger, you must maintain it in your thoughts. And whenever you’re wanting, it’s like a The place’s Waldo? What’s going to be the factor that brought about that factor to occur? After which whenever you see it, it connects collectively. Sondheim didn’t write the e-book of Merrily, however I at all times puzzled if that by some means influenced it.
And so we see it all through the reveals, within the buildings of the reveals, in the way in which that video games and puzzles are used, and typically within the means of how they developed.
What if a reader needs to choose up your e-book—who shouldn’t be essentially tremendous into puzzles or a hardcore puzzle doer? You have got the puzzles within the e-book. Would the informal puzzle particular person discover these sorts of puzzles difficult?
Let me reply your query in a roundabout manner. . . . After I speak about all of his video games and puzzles, I speak about three specific values. The primary is the precept of generosity. The second is the precept of playfulness. And the third is the precept of mentorship.
Generosity signifies that I’m right here that will help you have a fascinating time. I’m right here to make you be ok with your self—not simply be ok with how good I’m. And so it means creating alternatives to assist individuals alongside the way in which. Serving to alongside the way in which connects with the mentorship, which is constructing the scaffolding to assist individuals remedy the puzzles. And playfulness is simply making all of it enjoyable.
You talked about that your spouse purchased you three Sondheim books, so you have to have been a fan earlier than you began scripting this. When did you uncover your love of Broadway?
I’m laughing as a result of I’m in my room . . . and in my closet is a set of Playbills that return to the mid-Eighties. I can’t even rely what number of are right here. I grew up on Lengthy Island. My mother cherished musical theater, and it was a factor we frequently did as a household.
I realized very early on that I cherished what it meant to be in an viewers for a musical. I cherished the magic that was created on the stage. And extra importantly, I cherished the feelings that it introduced out in me.
