Kellian Adams Pletcher: First of all, it just sounds like a great game. And I love how Erin's in high heels and a ball gown and they're in this like super, super fancy place with these super fancy people. And at first they're like, "oh, we've gotta do well". But then like, the game settles in, right? And like, no one can resist the game.

Barry Joseph: Welcome to Matching Minds with Sondheim, the podcast. I am your host, Barry Joseph. As usual, we'll be joined by some amazing people to respond to audio clips from over 60 hours of my original interviews for the book. This time to focus on the topic of Stephen Sondheim and his treasure hunts. I'll be joined by two guests who might help us understand why Sondheim found treasure hunts for over a half of a century to be such a compelling form for designing experiences for both friends and colleagues. First, we have the returning Kellian Adams Pletcher, a game designer at FableVision Studios and an immersive theater creator who loves board games and escape rooms.

You might recall her from the second episode of this podcast series, which focused on "Stephen Sondheim and Escape Rooms". If not, please go check it out and you will hear Kellian recount the time she secretly stalked Sondheim as he designed a treasure hunt at the American Museum of Natural History. Kellian, welcome back to Matching Minds.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's so good to be back.

Barry Joseph: I'm so excited that we can go from a side story from the last episode to make that the foreground in this one to really hear what you think about treasure hunts.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: It's true, it's true. I mean, it really was like a core memory stalking Stephen Sondheim around the Museum of Natural History, hiding behind exhibits. Uh, yeah, it happened.

Barry Joseph: Our second guest today is new to Matching Minds: Robert Lee. A book writer, lyricist, and a faculty member, alum and current chair of the graduate musical theater writing program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Robert, welcome.

Robert Lee: Hey, thanks a bunch.

Barry Joseph: Robert, can you tell us more about both your connection with Stephen Sondheim and perhaps with treasure hunts?

Robert Lee: I grew up in Southern California. The expectation was that I was gonna go to college and I was gonna be a doctor. And what happened was that in college I discovered musical theater. And in the midst of all of this with my parents furious at me, I decided to write a letter to Stephen Sondheim, and surprisingly got a letter back from him. And it was a very encouraging letter, very sweet letter.

And so, for that summer, we just had this regular back and forth where every couple of weeks I would send him something and every couple of weeks he would send something back. That was the great part of it.

The other part of the memory is that I'm also somebody who, who has a letter from Sondheim that is like a really mean letter that is basically, like, ripping me a new one. Because the Assassins CD had come out and there was a lyric I just simply didn't understand. And so I wrote him and I said, "can you explain this lyric to me? I can't understand this lyric". And he wrote me back this note that said, "I don't know what's wrong with you. Isn't it obvious what this lyric means? And I actually never asked you what you thought of this. So, so you need to learn, you need to learn to not give your opinion when it's not asked for". And so I thought, oh, okay.

Barry Joseph: Lesson learned. Ouch.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh my God. And you've-

Robert Lee: Exactly.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: -got that handwritten letter, right? This is-

Robert Lee: Well, it was typed, all, all of his letters are typed. And then, and then, you know, he, he scrawls "Steve" or "S" at the bottom of them. But I get it, at this point I'm like- I completely understand that. I do not want to hear anything from anybody about any work of mine.

You know, like that's not ready to be, you know-

Kellian Adams Pletcher: For like, five years, right?

Robert Lee: -critiqued. Exactly. Like until I ask them, right?

I was also quite young in the 1980s, and so I grew up with video games.

I had an Apple II computer, so I grew up with computer games. I grew up with, with Dungeons and Dragons becoming like a huge mainstream thing. And so I really grew up with a lot of games and loving games in terms of looking at how they were designed and playing them. And, it's really interesting, at a certain point when I found my interest in theater, all of that dropped away.

For decades, I was just a musical theater person and really stopped playing games and really kind of closed off that whole side of me.

The way that I got back into games was that I have a husband, who lives halfway across the country. And so when we first started seeing each other, the way that we could connect with each other was playing strategy games, like online strategy games.

And then at one point, I found myself buying more and more tickets to immersive installations and to escape rooms, and I started to reconnect with that side of myself.

So the thing that I started to understand was that this separation between these two interests of mine, games and computers and musical theater, that there was this deep thing that actually connected the two that it took me a long time to understand, which was that they're both ways of engaging people.

And so in the past 10 years, I would say, I've become increasingly more and more interested in saying, "well, what happens if we start really embracing the fact that theater and games, have this common purpose?" Right? And why is it that we separate them?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Please tell me that you're making an immersive interactive musical. Please.

Robert Lee: Well, trying constantly, like, trying constantly to figure it out. It's, it's really hard really. It's really, really, really hard.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: We just did the Cthulhu Luau in May. And that had a full original score to it. But finding that mix between like fully interactive and full musical, that was difficult.

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: So I think, you know, we, we had a really good opening number and a really good closing number that were all song and dance and interactive and stage.

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: And then the open- the center just opened up into a game fully.

Barry Joseph: Of course, for listeners who care more about immersive theaters, please go back to the Escape Room episode where we talked about that in depth as well. Today, let's talk about treasure hunts. And we heard a little bit from you, Robert, about your connection with games. Kellian, when did you first start getting interested in treasure hunts or puzzle hunts?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh my gosh. So treasure hunts and puzzle hunts. A lot of people have this story where they're sort of like, they were board gamers or they were video gamers, or they had a gaming family. But actually none of that was the case with my family. We didn't play card games, we didn't play board games, we didn't have video game consoles. I grew up in Northern New Hampshire. So, you know, it was pretty isolated area. And so my first love for games was actually the annual Franconia Outing Club Road Rally. And that was a big deal. That was like my favorite annual event.

I mean, it happened every Memorial Day weekend in May. So Northern New Hampshire, it's the first time that people are actually like going outside of their houses, you know, it was so much fun. We would go all the way, you know, across New Hampshire and people would get lost in Vermont and it was a whole day event.

Huge treasure hunt.

Barry Joseph: What's a road rally?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh, a road rally. Okay. So a road rally is like a treasure hunt. But of course, you know, we're not in New York City, we're in Northern New Hampshire, so you could only drive places. And then there were like 40 cars, cars line up, and you've got sort of your game board, so to speak, which is just like a couple pieces of paper and they're stapled together and you have your number. And they write down the time that you take off and the cars are lined up and away you go.

So that's the way that the road rally would work.

Barry Joseph: So you grew up with this experience of multi-generational puzzle hunting gameplay.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: It was better than Christmas. It was my favorite, favorite event.

Barry Joseph: Amazing. It sounds amazing.

Alright, so today we're gonna be talking about not just treasure hunts, but Stephen Sondheim and his treasure hunts. We actually have documentation and direct reports of Sondheim designed treasure hunts from as early as the 1960s, as late as 2013. And this is our first episode in our podcast series in which we'll pick one of those hunts and do a deep dive. So today we'll be tackling his last, and arguably his most epic hunt, the 2013 City Center treasure hunt. We begin to level check, is there anything either of you know about it?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: No, totally going into this blind.

Robert Lee: Nope.

Barry Joseph: Alright, so for listeners of this episode, you can join Robert and Kellian as together we explore the 2013 City Center treasure hunt. So, in your mind, go back. It's 2013, it's Sunday, March 3rd. You're one of the many guests arriving in New York City's New York City Center for a private birthday party. Robert, for those who haven't been before, can you describe New York City City Center?

Robert Lee: Most people in the musical theater world would know City Center as the venue for the Encore series.

And what Encore started off as was as a concert series where they would perform the scores of musicals that were deemed maybe too old-fashioned or rickety or whatever in terms of the book, but the scores were amazing. So, for the early ones they were basically concerts and orchestra on stage, and they would just sing the songs. If anybody has seen the revival of Chicago, Chicago was really the first concert to come out of that Encore series that then ended up being moved to Broadway.

When you walk in, there's a huge grand lobby. And it's probably like, is it three or four levels?

Barry Joseph: The building was designed in a Neo-Moorish style. It is opulent. It is awe-inspiring and yeah, it's great to see a show in the Encore series when you go, but you could just sit there and look at the building. It is just gorgeous sitting in it. entire building was rented out for someone's birthday party. The birthday party was for Perry Granoff. Perry and Marty Granoff are old friends of Stephen Sondheim at this point in 2013. I think they were initially investors in Pacific Overtures in the 1970s, and they became friends over the decades. Actually, you know what?

Let's hear a few words from Marty about how this came about.

Marty Granoff: We've been friends for 40 some odd years. I asked Steve, I said, "would you mind? Let's create a treasure hunt for her birthday". He created 12 questions that led to the treasure and they were all about my wife's life and we're married 56 years at the time, and uh, I got one of the 12. And that was with help.

Stephen went around to every table. He was trying to help them, you know, uh, but you know, questions, uh, like "you're not thinking laterally" or things like that, where, you know, there was certainly no help, but he got the greatest charge out of it while this all was going on. Everybody was there, was like completely blown away. I mean, have Stephen Sondheim at the table, kibitzing with everybody. I just thought it'd be a fun thing to do. You know? I thought he was gonna say no, but he did. Which shock the pants off me. And I can't tell you how many hours he put in. I mean, he put in weeks on it, maybe months. When it comes to puzzles, I don't think anybody can match up with Steve.

His mind was on such a different planet. And he loved doing this, this loved it.

Barry Joseph: So here you are at the cocktail party. You might have noticed even Sondheim standing around. Marty takes the microphone and welcomes everyone to the party, then suddenly gives the mic over to Stephen Sondheim, who now explains for the next hour, you're gonna be split into groups and play an entire treasure hunt.

Designed around the life of the guest of honor around Perry Grof. Could you imagine Stephen Sondheim designing an entire game about your life because he cares about you that much?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Having world famous composers creating scavenger hunts in my honor is not quite on my list of things to do right now, but maybe soon.

Robert Lee: It's fascinating to me that nobody has decided to write a book about Sondheim's games until now. It was one of the things that I remember the first time I read a bio of Sondheim. It was just one of those details that lodged in your brain.

I would suspect that for anybody in his circle, you know, anybody who knew, oh, Stephen Sondheim is designing this game that you're all gonna play, it's about as exciting as musical theater fans who would hear about a new show that he was written that was opening.

Barry Joseph: During the cocktail party there were tables, Robert and Kelly, and you might've been assigned to table five with five other people. Your table would've gotten a packet. you would've also been assigned a guardian of the game --that was

Sondheim's term-- so each table had a guardian who was there both to help you and also protect the space you were in from all of you, right? And you would open up the packet where there were instructions, which we'll look at shortly and 12 different puzzles.

Each puzzle could be done in any order

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: by any number of people on your team. And each puzzle would lead to a location in the building on any of the four floors. So you had the entire theater to work with. So while two people are running off, 'cause you've solved one of the puzzles to one of the locations, other people are sitting, working on the next puzzle,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: This is so cool.

Barry Joseph: you would then go to that location and look for a bag of tickets.

So every location had a unique set of tickets for a location in City Center. And you would then have to go to that seat. you would go to say Row m, seat 23, and underneath it there would be one single letter. So the end of every single puzzle was a letter. Your team was collecting the letters in any order with the promise being that once you had all the letters, it would tell you the final location of the treasure.

Robert Lee: So I'm curious about, two things, when I heard the clip, I just kept imagining, you know, Stephen Sondheim hovering over everybody's shoulder and just thinking how intimidating that would be, like playing a game, with somebody like that, you know, a genius looking over your shoulder. but also I'm really curious with these sorts of games, it's like, what is to keep somebody from like I can imagine somebody deciding, oh, okay, the way that I'm gonna play the game is who cares about all of the clues? I'm just gonna start randomly going and looking under every seat and looking under whatever, you know, in which case somebody could really ruin the game inadvertently by messing something up, right?

Like taking something that they're not supposed to take or whatever. So are these rules well established at the beginning? Is there just an understanding of, well, you know, nobody wants to spoil the birthday party.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: that's a, That's a gaming strategy. It's called brute force.

Mm-hmm. I mean, and I'm, I'm not even making that up, right? Like, sometimes you'll be in an escape room or you're playing a scavenger hunt and you just can't solve something. And so you'll try to back solve it where you'll brute force and you'll just be like, okay, dammit, I can't get it.

I'm looking under every single, seat until I find it. And then you backs solve it that way,

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Possible to do it, but it's no fun at all.

So most games can be broken in that way, but it kind of also breaks the spirit of the game. It's almost like, well, what are we doing here if we're just gonna bru force every single puzzle, right?

Barry Joseph: it raises the question of what is cheating and what determines when it's okay to, cheat.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: for example, in the treasure hunt at the American Museum of Natural History, he explicitly said, do not Google.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: he says It's cheating and it's also not fun, right? So he's explicitly putting a constraint Mm-hmm. On this treasure hunt one person told me about how they would run behind other people.

They might not know where the

Robert Lee: Hmm.

location

Barry Joseph: of the ticket was gonna be,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: but they think someone else did so they would just go behind them and find it together. Is that cheating? Sondheim didn't say, because Sondheim didn't say the, culture of the, party established what or what wasn't cheating, right?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I love that.

Barry Joseph: So it's interesting to think about how the culture in which one does the treasure hunt, helps to shape it, even if it's not explicitly detailed.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

Barry Joseph: Speaking of what it's like to be in it, I have some clips from people who were there. Should we hear from some of them?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes.

Robert Lee: Let's do it.

Barry Joseph: we're gonna hear from two people, a married couple.

Robert Lee: Perfect.

Barry Joseph: Alexander Gemignani. Musician, artistic director, educator, and whose father is Paul Gemignani, who was Sondheim's musical director for many decades, and Alexander's wife, the theater director, Aaron Ortman. Let's hear what they had to tell me about what it was like to be at the 2013 City Center treasure hunt.

Alexander Gemignani: Of course the cocktail portion was Steve's puzzles was the sort of like, nobody knew it was coming. Nobody knew what was going on and they were really, really hard. But our table came in second place, which I felt very proud to be in that group.

Erin Ortman: I don't even remember coming in second.

Alexander Gemignani: I do. Because I thought we were gonna take it.

We were on the last puzzle and you were going to go get the last clue in the house. Yeah, but some team to our right was like, we finished and I remember the prize was a t-shirt with a picture of Perry on it.

Erin Ortman: So I think we split up duties.

Alexander Gemignani: You might, and I was the searcher were you were the searcher because you were like, these are too hard.

Erin Ortman: But I was the most nimble.

Alexander Gemignani: You were the most, you were the most spry.

Erin Ortman: I honestly, could not believe that Marty got him to do it. Yeah. That's how I felt. I was shocked. Yeah, because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And it was so brilliantly put together and he would've had to spend time in the building.

Just the amount of time that must have gone into how much work went into it. I was just like, wow. He really loves Marty. Not surprised, but just. It was, I mean, it was a masterpiece. It's almost ridiculous to be like, yeah, I went on a scavenger hunt created by Stephen Sondheim.

Alexander Gemignani: Very hard to explain it.

Erin Ortman: Yeah, it sounds like a, like it would be in two truths and a lie or something.

Alexander Gemignani: Right, right, right. Right.

Erin Ortman: Then it was so fun. But I remember initially it was just amazing.

Alexander Gemignani: Well, once we got into it, everybody's competitive spirit really got going.

Erin Ortman: Oh yeah. We got over the amazement pretty fast and just got into the game.

Alexander Gemignani: Yeah.

Erin Ortman: People were very serious about working.

Alexander Gemignani: Very serious.

Erin Ortman: Yeah. I was being told where to go.

Yeah. And I ran quickly. I was, I was used for my youth and fitness.

Alexander Gemignani: Yep. That is correct.

Erin Ortman: I was in the house a lot. Yeah. I was always in the house. Yeah. And I remember being like in high heels. That's the other thing. Yeah. I was like, why didn't they warn us? I was dressed so nicely.

Barry Joseph: To get some memories to pop why don't I quickly just run through the puzzles. I can show them to you on the screen and see if you have any immediate response to them.

Alexander Gemignani: Sure. Okay. Clue page. Yes. I remember writing all over these things. Oh yeah. I remember feeling bad writing all over them because they were like hard card stock, like really nice.

And I was like, can I just like scroll all over these things? But I guess. I remember all of these. Oh, we had to add, there was one of these things where we had to,

Erin Ortman: oh, the addition, the math one.

Alexander Gemignani: Oh, yeah. Yep. Oh yeah. This is like, this is like, uh, reliving trauma here, Barry.

Erin Ortman: No, the math was beyond, yeah.

Alexander Gemignani: Divide by her age when she moved to Jersey as a number of, yeah.

I, this you're having the same reaction.

Erin Ortman: No, but even, you know, the amount of the intellectual prowess of the people at Marty's parties are, you know, that's a high level and everybody was struggling. I do remember that.

Alexander Gemignani: It's such a Steve tone thing to be like, you should now have a five digit number.

Meaning like, if you don't, you're such a fool. You've done something terribly wrong.

Erin Ortman: I did, but there was, people were not doing well with the math.

Alexander Gemignani: That's insane. I mean, it's a once in a lifetime. Yeah. Thing and you're keenly aware of it. But also like I would, I would say I'm a moderately competitive person.

Would you agree with that?

Erin Ortman: Yeah.

Alexander Gemignani: So something like this, I'm like, get me in there.

Erin Ortman: It was just amazing. It was even happening, but then people were taking it very seriously. Like we had to move through the amazement. Yeah. People started to get, but it was still very playful. I think we felt very honored to be able to play the game.

Yeah. But then once the game started. People wanted to wait.

Alexander Gemignani: Yeah, I remember we were all talking about it as we went downstairs, Walter and Shirley and I have a vague memory of Shirley holding up the T-shirt and being like, are you kidding me? Like being, after all of that, we had a T-shirt with Perry's face on it.

I laughed out loud. Like guffaw. Yeah. It was all part of the joy of the whole, but also, I mean, thing my, the thought in my head was like, the money Marty spent on this party.

Erin Ortman: And all I got was a lousy T-shirt.

Alexander Gemignani: Exactly.

It's an amazing confirmation of like the idiosyncratic way in which his brain functioned that this was play, like this was the thing that kept him agile and alive and you know, it was amazing without really having any kind of elitism around it, I just felt like this was very him. And so that felt authentic.

And so that was, that's why it was fun to engage in.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I think one thing that's interesting about that whole thing, I mean, first of all, it just sounds like a great game. And I love how Erin's in high heels and a ball gown and they're in this like super, super fancy place with these super fancy people.

And at first they're like, oh, we've gotta do well. But then like, The game settles in, right? And like, no one can resist the game. So no matter how fancy they are, they're like, we've gotta win this. And it's like, the response is always the same. It doesn't matter who it is, you know, it always ends up being something similar where people are like, ah, we gotta get this thing. But another thing that I think is so super interesting is that in terms of being like a trailblazer and a musician and a producer and like the stories that he created, like of course Sondheim is like an absolute genius, but in terms of a lot of the puzzles that I've seen, these feel really normal to me actually. and everybody's always like, oh, you're such a genius. This was totally genius. This has never been done before. But I don't think this is true. I think they might just have never seen these things before because Sondheim was a pretty good scholar of puzzles. And you know, we played a couple of their puzzles and they were good, but I don't know if I would necessarily say they were genius. I would say they were good. They were fun. and it's just interesting to me how like somebody can be such a complete, like just game changer in one part of the world and in another one that it's like I can look at this guy and be like, wow, this is really amazing that he was doing this. But I know a lot of people that were doing this in 2013, and it's good, but if it weren't song time, would I look at that and be like, it was incredible. I'd be like, this is fun, you know?

Robert Lee: yeah. One of the things that's so fascinating about listening to that interview is the reverence, right? is the reverence, that they have for him.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right.

Robert Lee: I'm finding myself thinking, when I buy a board game or whatever, and it's an incredible experience.

Yeah. I'll look at the name of the designer and then I'll file that away and I'll say, oh, yeah, next time I look for a board game, I'm gonna look for something that designer did.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: the same thing as saying, oh my God, the person who designed this is a genius and blah, blah. You know?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right.

Robert Lee: it's, it's, it's one of the fascinating parts about this and I think this ties into the whole thing about that they're dressed so nicely and then they're being asked to run around right there.

There's some really interesting clash between it's not fair to say the trappings of, you know, elite party, but maybe that's exactly the right word. You know, that it's that idea that you have this incredibly sort of, this ritual, right?

This ritual that, is very familiar to all of us in that, oh, everyone's dressed up and everyone goes to this party and it's an important party and it's this glamorous space and all these people are important people. and yet the game itself is a game that's in a way designed to, um, is this too much to say? It's designed to like, you know, make a mess of you. Right? It's a design to, it's designed to get you into, I, maybe I'll put it this way, it's a game that's designed to get you into a certain kind of messy play. Right. Um, and I'm thinking about that and then I'm thinking of, the play that he co-wrote, getting Away With Murder, and I'm thinking of, the movie The Last Sheila, which because when you look at those, pieces, there's very much, a skewering of the elite.

And so it's sort of interesting listening to them talk about what this is. And I I find myself thinking, oh, Sanam knew exactly what he was doing in terms of, in terms of designing something where people would need to be running around a huge theater in high heels,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

Robert Lee: you know, and in gowns and then in tuxes, right?

Barry Joseph: Robert, you're also describing his last musical, the elite

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: running around

Robert Lee: Sure. Yep.

Barry Joseph: being played with in the same way.

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Barry Joseph: I wouldn't say I hear people say it's brilliant because it hasn't been done, but I hear it being say it's brilliant because of the way he did it.

And so let's take a look at some of what he did. I'm curious to hear what you think.

Are you guys ready?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Are we ever!

Robert Lee: We are

Barry Joseph: the packet that we're looking at has page numbers.

So let's start with number two.

This is the instructions, the only four instructions that were included for the entire puzzle.

For the, sake of our listeners who can't see it can you please read The, rules?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Sure. inside this envelope are 12 clues. The solution to each is a location and City Center. In the corner of the clue is the level on which the location can be found, orchestra level, grandier, mezzanine, or balcony.

Robert Lee: the clues do not lead to. each other. Each one is a separate entity.

They can be solved in any order you wish.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Number three, at each location, you'll find an envelope of City Center tickets.

Take one and keep it. Please leave the others in the envelope and replace this envelope as exactly as we can, leaving the rest of the tickets inside.

Robert Lee: Save the tickets together, they will give you an instruction to lead you to the treasure. you will lead all 12 to find the treasure

Barry Joseph: I love how elegant and succinct these instructions are. If I had to describe how to play the game, it would take me three pages and he did it in like five or six sentences,

Robert Lee: right.

Barry Joseph: remarkable.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I do think that there is a crossover between somebody who's creating a play and someone who's creating a puzzle hunt like you have a limited amount of time. Whether you're creating a game or a play, you know when you're gonna lose people. Right? Like the answer is always shorter, always.

Right.

Robert Lee: Yeah. There's also something that's really nice always about like the collecting of physical, you know, physical objects, Right? There's something about, once I see an envelope of City Center tickets, take one and keep it,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: I you immediately start thinking, oh, I'm gonna get as many as I can.

Right? and so there is a built motivator. In terms of,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right?

Robert Lee: of,

just the things to collect.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: Let's turn the page now.

This is the Cheat Sheet. It's essentially a list of information about Perry Grof. It says the date she was born, when her children were born, names of her dogs. It's not clear at all why we need to know any of this at this point in time, but what he's doing is making sure that prior knowledge doesn't give you a leg up in this treasure hunt. In this case, it's about a person, but it could be in an art museum, and the knowledge of art is what makes you more successful than others. He's leveling the playing field and diving deep into the guest of honor.

Robert Lee: Well it's, it's interesting 'cause this answers a question that I had from the beginning, but I but hadn't asked yet, which is if all the details are based on perry, like, is the expectation that everybody's going to ask Perry? And so I just kept thinking, oh, so what kind of a traffic jam is that gonna be, you know, a bottleneck with everybody?

On the one hand I thought, oh, what a great idea to make the birthday person, the center of attention, but also you know, doesn't really work for a game.

Barry Joseph: Sondheim solved for that

Robert Lee: Right.

Barry Joseph: with this sheet, and also told you, this is all you need to know about her.

that's the most important thing in a treasure hunt situation, knowing what to ignore, Right, Kellian?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh Yeah.

Barry Joseph: Now let's take a look at the puzzles. We don't have time to look at them all but let's start by going to the first clue, and when I say first one, it's called clue number one. But they were designed to be done in any order, so we should keep that

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: They're just there so we can refer to them.

This one's called Perry's biographical notes. this is clearly a math puzzle, with all of these clues, they did not come to me, with any answers. All I had was the puzzles. in order to understand full story that Sondheim was writing. I needed to have the puzzle solved. so, I brought together a bunch of people on Zoom and then pretended we were reenacting the hunt, and I pretended to be the host. And I walked them through it and kind of the way we did in the beginning when I said, imagine it's 2013. So why don't we listen to a short audio of what it was like, for them to solve this puzzle. Before we jump in, let me explain who some of the voices are. We essentially had four teams. One was game designer Andrew Parr with his then fiancee, Jess Butler, Michael Mitnick, who we've heard earlier in this podcast series, along with Mark Halpin and also Richard Malty Jr.

Mark Halpin: Mm-hmm.

And we wanna go to the men's room.

Barry Joseph: How does 13 5 1 4 become men's room?

Mark Halpin: Okay, so if we take 13 5 1 4, the 13 is alpha numeric for M, the five alpha numeric for E and the 14 alpha numeric for N. So the men's room.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: Yep. Excellent.

Barry Joseph: Can you walk us through it from top to bottom?

Mark Halpin: Sure. So we take the year, Perry was born 1943, divide by her age when she moved to New Jersey, 20, which is 29, which gives us the nice round 67, add the number of years she'd been married.

I believe that's 37, which gets us to 1 0 4, the number of letters in the grandchild's first name, which is five. So that gets us to 99, multiply by their number of pets, which is four. That gets us to 3 96. Add Michael's age when he married to, that's 31 that gives us to 4 27 Perry's age when she married Marty.

That's 23. So that gets us to 4 0 4. Subtract the number of years she and Marty had lived in New Jersey when they moved to Saddle River. That's seven. So that gets us to 3 97. Perry's age tonight, which is 69, that gets us to 4 66 and multiply by the number of days in February the year Michael was born.

That was a leap year, and so that's multiplying 4 69 by 29, and that gets us to 1 3 5 1 4. The one in the three equals M, the five equals E, and the 14 equals n.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: Fabulous.

Barry Joseph: So imagine on the mezzanine level, you went to the one men's room and in that men's room you see an envelope and there's a ticket and there's a ticket for a seat number.

You go to that seat number and there's a white sheet with the letter G on it. Is that a type of puzzle that is known if one had to describe it or categorize it? Yeah, it's a known sort of thing you do where you give it a lot of information and you have to figure out. A number, but I mean, of course, amazingly clever that he managed to find a mathematical way of ending up with men.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: So somehow or other, his whole calculation, including multiply by 29 is gonna come up, with 13, 5, 14. I don't know if I would like to go and work backwards from that. You know, he's gotta end up with 1, 3, 5, 1, 4. What is that number you, you know? So clever. I can just imagine that he would've spent a week just on the math, just trying to figure that out because it has multiplications and those are impossible.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I'm gonna be ornery. We lose credibility when we call somebody brilliant and genius for something that isn't brilliant and, genius, right? We gotta call the things that really are properly clever clever, And the things that aren't properly clever be like: this wasn't one of the best, but. other stuff that he did was really epic. you know what I mean? And there were some things about this puzzle hunt that really were brilliant and very much be ahead of its time. But I would say that this particular math puzzle, which not, was not one of them, and probably the other puzzles were much more clever. Anyways, that's just me being a grumbler.

Robert Lee: When I look at this and when I hear what Kelly is saying, like the thing that just immediately pops into my head is like, wow, games have evolved so much. I think of what games and puzzles were

Kellian Adams Pletcher: right,

Robert Lee: when I was growing up, and this would've been the sort of thing that you would see in a book of puzzles, right?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: right.

Robert Lee: And one of the interesting things to me is to think about like, because we're looking at this now from the standpoint of being people who are, significantly younger, right, than Sondheim is, and grew up with a different level of gameplay, right, and different understanding of what games and puzzles can be.

The thing that I love so much about escape rooms, right, Is that, is that it's like you solve the puzzle and then something opens. Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's the most thrilling thing about an escape room is that like, suddenly the fireplace opens, right. And so Yeah. I mean, I hear everything that Kellian is saying and, and I'm also thinking, Yeah, but if I think about, who I was way back in the eighties I would've never imagined that escape rooms would exist.

Does that make sense? Or I would've never imagined that the narrative board games that we have would even be possible

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: In a weird way, what we think of today, as board games and as party games and I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm not a game scholar, but it seems to me that they're so affected by our relationship with technology and our relationship with computers.

Does that make sense? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's like the board game speaks to you . We got used to computer games and video games, and then it's like we started reverse engineering them and saying, can we do the analog version of the digital game? Right? That's one thing that I think about when I'm looking at this, that I think, oh, it's really interesting because the thing that is, I would say less interesting to me is that it's not requiring me to do any thinking about characters or about ethics or about narrative or any of those things that I've come to expect from games and puzzles.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

Robert Lee: But I have to remind myself that's not what Sondheim grew up with.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I mean, this is 2013, right? So,

Robert Lee: yeah,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: and Sondheim is the master of narrative. So it's just surprising to me sometimes that he was so innovative

Robert Lee: yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: with some of these formats, right? So like, now you can look at this and be like, oh,

This is a ballroom game format.

but in 2013

as far as I know, that wasn't like a replicable format that people used

Robert Lee: Right,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: You know, like he was

Robert Lee: right,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: was doing ballroom games before there were ballroom games. But oddly he

Robert Lee: Right,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: didn't make that sort of sideways, that lateral movement to incorporate narrative,

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: which is what he did in all of

Robert Lee: Yeah,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: his other work. Right.

Robert Lee: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think I'm in a place where I'm hearing everything that you're saying and, and I won't lie that I have the same feeling looking at the puzzle in a way where it just makes my head hurt and not in a good way. And I just don't know, I don't know whether Sondheim, as much as he loved games, was he somebody who had like a, circle of people who were constantly up on the latest games?

Barry Joseph: Let me push back in a few areas here,

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: and I really respect what you're both saying. We are looking at so far just the first clue, which is a math clue, which as you mentioned, Kelly, it's a bit of a slog doing the math, but we're just talking about the math

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: because we don't know the guest of honor. We don't have a relationship with her. If we did every number we'd be looking at is connected to something about her life that we either knew or didn't know? Oh, this is the name of her dogs. She had five dogs versus two or seven. Oh, this was the age she was when she moved to New Jersey. Let's say we talked about, maybe there's no narrative here, but I would push back and say, I think there is, a narrative. It is treasure hunt as biography of getting to know this person's life, who we already have a relationship with, and getting to know her in a new way. And so while the math is the mechanic for moving through it, the aesthetic experience for me, I would think if I was there, is getting to know her in a new way.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Push back against your pushing back though, right? Because like when, like, so, right? No, because first of all, they, they gave us, like the list of all the numbers, right.

And second, I would look at that list of things and be like, it doesn't actually tell you anything about her. It just tells you who she married and what children she had, which as a woman, I find to be the least interesting part of any person, right? If I were to do something like this, I think I, would start getting more into the food, the Perry's allergic to the first five letters of the last place she went on vacation. If you're trying to get at numbers, I don't know. It's just, this is just a clumsy way to do it. I think. I would've gone a little deeper.

If I were Sondheim.

Barry Joseph: So let's move on past the first clue,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: right.

Barry Joseph: and I think what we should do now is take a look at the other clues and feel free to comment on anything that looks interesting to you.

Robert Lee: I like the Rebus. I didn't solve it yet, but I, I'm a sucker for Rebus.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: can never go wrong with a good reus.

Oh, clue number five is cute. Each word above could be proceeded by a certain word, the same in each case to form another word or, two word phrase. I'm sorry to sound like grumble bones, or that I know everything about all of his puzzles. But I do find that the puzzles that I think are the most clever are ones that involve word play of some sort. But you can tell this is somebody has done a lot of word puzzles. Okay. We don't have time, but I wanna do that puzzle,

Robert Lee: I do think it goes to something that, Barry has mentioned a number of times, which is that this puzzle requires lateral thinking in a way, which the math puzzle doesn't. The math puzzle requires skill. Right? And you're just naturally less interested in the things you. don't know how to do. Right. Or the things that you're not good at. That's me anyway.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: That's totally me too.

Robert Lee: you know? So one of the things that is less interesting to me about chess is just, I'm terrible at strategy, and so I can't play chess, and so I need something else, right?

And with the lateral thinking in this puzzle, it's like, okay, you don't need a particular skill at anything. You just need to have an imagination and you have to have life experience. I guess that's the other thing that you need with lateral thinking.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Robert Lee: So I have the first word. I don't have the second word yet.

Barry Joseph: So let me just set this up. For those who don't have the full context, we're

Robert Lee: I,

Barry Joseph: at two collections of words there is a word that can go before the first set. And there's a word that can go before the second set. And when you put those two words together, that will tell us our ticket is on the balcony.

Robert Lee: oh.

Barry Joseph: So again, not only does this need to make a word, it has to be a word that is a place you can find in the theater.

Robert Lee: Okay.

Barry Joseph: Robert, do

Robert Lee: I have it. I have it?

Yep.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: You

Barry Joseph: That's it.

Robert Lee: Yep.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: wasn't, I

wasn't even trying to solve it. Tell us what it is.

Barry Joseph: Without

Robert Lee: okay. Now. I won't say it. it?

yeah. '

Barry Joseph: cause the people who are listening at home can't see the words. Just describe where the location is and what the process was like for you to figure it out.

Robert Lee: I guess I just looked at the words, and I just started trying to put words in front of each of those and words after each of them. And eventually I found what that first word was.

And then the second one, I did the same thing.

Barry Joseph: We're not there. And I would

Robert Lee: tell you if

Barry Joseph: you were there, there is a sign on the wall that says men's Room this way. And the word you're thinking about this way.

So the

Robert Lee: oh. Okay.

Barry Joseph: is

on the sign.

Robert Lee: Great. Great. Okay.

Barry Joseph: So Robert, you

Robert Lee: Uhhuh.

had a

Barry Joseph: moment when all of this chaos became order, when all of these words

Robert Lee: Uhhuh.

Barry Joseph: suddenly had meaning.

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: was it like for you, in that moment? Yeah.

Robert Lee: Oh, it's like a little thrill, right. Because you feel smart, you feel like you're on the inside when you get it, right?

Barry Joseph: And the language you just used.

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: you feel smart,

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Barry Joseph: Many of the people I spoke with about Sondheim's puzzle spoke about the fact that he didn't design it. So you would say Sondheim was smart.

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: Sondheim designed it. So you would say, I feel smart, you would feel good. And he thinking

Robert Lee: Right?

Barry Joseph: about the people working through his puzzles and wanted to work with them to get to that point.

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Yeah,

it was through

Barry Joseph: the instructions, through the design of the puzzle, or getting to be at the party and saying, Hey, lateral thinking.

Robert Lee: yeah, yeah. And it's true of his work as a writer too, really. I mean, it's one of the fascinating things. I used to joke with a friend of mine about this, that one of the reasons why actors so many musical theater actors love to perform Songtime songs is because it makes them feel smart.

Which is a version of the exact same thing, right? A lot of times it's easy as a writer for audiences or for critics or for historians to forget the fact that the last thing that Sonam ever wants to do is write over the heads of his audience

That's not what he's doing. He's not concerned with impressing anybody with his facility, you know, as a wordsmith or the intellectual ideas. What he wants is he wants you as an audience member to understand, and he wants you to understand something deeply, but he wants you to come to that understanding, right?

And so Sondheim never tells you, none of his songs tell you what you're supposed to feel. His songs manage to create that empty space that you can step into so that you feel the thing that he wants you to feel, right? And you get that insight and the actor gets to discover what that insight is.

So to me there's a natural connection between what he's after as a writer, and everything he ever wrote. And in this case, what he's after as a puzzle maker.

Barry Joseph: That's beautiful. I'm gonna take you together with me to clue number six. 'cause that needs some explanation in part because it's actually two sheets, so you'll need to look at both. And, because unlike the other clues, this one came with no instructions, which already tells you something. It's a grid and grill puzzle. And in fact, I love this one so much. I opened the book by talking about my experience of trying to solve it. The first page is the grill. It looks like a, you know, boxes, like a crossword almost, but nothing filled in except a few of them have letters. And then there is space, like the paper was physically cut. That's what makes it a grill. 'cause you're gonna hold it over the next sheet, which is the grid, which looks almost the, same, where it's like, you know, almost like crossword boxes with letters in them and boxes in other spots, instruction, just these two sheets. So of course the first thing you think when you see it is, well, I'm supposed to put one on top of the other.

But it doesn't tell you how or in what way or what you're looking for. This is the one puzzle of all of them That people were not able to figure out. And so sondheim told them all, it was all a matter of perspective, suggesting that there might just be another way to look at his grid and grow puzzle. And as soon as he said that, people said, oh, I get it. And without explaining exactly how it works, what I'll share is it is designed so that the thing that you intuitively think is, correct is wrong. And when you imagine in your head the thing that is right, you immediately reject it. Watched people do this time, and again, they're about to do the right thing, but then they don't do it 'cause they've done it in their head and they've it being incorrect. I think that's brilliant. it's playing with people's assumptions, both before they start and then the assumptions of how one would solve a puzzle once they're in it.

Robert Lee: I will say something that occurred to me that goes back to the math puzzle, you know, which clearly the math puzzle was not the kind of puzzle that Kelly and I are usually attracted to. But then I remembered, oh, this is a whole game that's meant to be done by teams of people,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm. right.

Robert Lee: And also they're meant to be puzzles that are done out of order, right.

Or in whatever order, I should say. and So now I'm suddenly thinking, oh, well, it's actually kind of wonderful because there are probably people who could not do the word puzzle that you and I loved.

Like what about those people? Do you know what I mean? People who are not lateral thinkers

Kellian Adams Pletcher: The idea with a suite is that you wanna have something that's accessible

Robert Lee: something for everybody. That's right.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: personality types and stripes

Robert Lee: That's right.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah,

Robert Lee: right.

Barry Joseph: I'm glad you brought that up, 'cause that's one of the things that for me is very important about this suite of puzzles. I'm not expecting each puzzle to be the most innovative puzzle in the world, but I'm watching how they work together to create an experience, not for an individual, but for a group of people

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: a group of people who have been drinking.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right, right. Yeah. and I mean, these are not puzzlers either, right. and so you're trying to create something that um, you know, sort of your, your newbies, uh, are, are gonna find accessible. Yeah. And I think he's doing a good job at that. are, These are not puzzles for puzzlers. these are puzzlers for puzzle. Muggs. Right. Like, regular folks who might not be accustomed to doing the spent stuff.

Barry Joseph: I think it's time for you guys to get to try and solve one together.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh

no.

Robert Lee: Okay.

Barry Joseph: But to do it, you need to solve it the two of you with the listeners. Read the instructions to them, and as you're solving it, try not to do it in your head as much as you can to verbalize it so they can hear the process you're going through together.

Robert Lee: okay. Clue number 12 in the balcony. Perry's favorite shows except one. Here are some of the musicals Perry particularly likes except one in alphabetical order A Little Night Music Cats, Fiorello Kiss Me Kate, The Music Man, South Pacific. And that's the list. Put them all in chronological order of their opening nights on Broadway and then read either the initial letters or the final letters up or down, and that's where you'll find your ticket.

Okay?

Barry Joseph: Keep in mind this is gonna be a place in a theater, but without even being in the theater, I bet you guys can solve it.

Robert Lee: Okay? So so I believe South Pacific is 1949. Fiorello I believe is 1950. Should we write this down? And then the next one I think is Kiss Me Kate. Music Man would be next A Little Night Music would be next, and then Cats would be the last. Okay, so I may have gotten one in the wrong place. kiss me Kate. Might be, might actually be earlier.

Barry Joseph: For the sake of time, I think it's safe to say it's the oldest of the shows.

Robert Lee: Yeah. So it is at the top right.

Barry Joseph: So can you read us the list again? From oldest to

Robert Lee: yep. It would be Kiss Me, Kate, South Pacific, Fiorello

Music Man, A Little Night Music and Cats

Barry Joseph: I think there's two that are in each other's spot next to each other, and

Robert Lee: one has to do with a mayor of New

Barry Joseph: York City

Robert Lee: okay. And so,

Barry Joseph: with someone who likes trouble

Robert Lee: okay.

Barry Joseph: to get people to avoid it.

Robert Lee: Oh, really? Okay then I have my dates totally wrong. Okay. So that ends up being, well, I, I, I would've been better years ago. I haven't had to know these dates in ages. Okay. C-A-F-M-S-K,

right.

Wait a mess.

S-S-O-N-C-E. That's one version of It

Barry Joseph: What was that?

Robert Lee: was going backwards. Oh, oh, sorry. I wrote down MUS for A Little Night Music, which, and it's actually M-U-S-I-C. I'm sorry.

SCO, uh, Sconce.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Woo.

Robert Lee: Is that right?

Barry Joseph: it? you got it. Sconce!

And the sconces at City Center are gorgeous every time you go now, Robert, you're gonna be Oh, the sconces. Let me tell you a story about

Robert Lee: that's right.

Barry Joseph: sconces.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: at those. So, so I

Robert Lee: I am.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: seen that

puzzle. You had it in your talk berry at serious play, which was super, super fun and I loved it. and Robert, I went about it exactly the same way that you did, except for we had to Google everything. 'cause I didn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of, uh, these musicals. but the person who beat us, and I thought this was super clever, and this is such a great example of brute forcing, but it still really works,

Robert Lee: Uh huh.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: was somebody looked at all of the first letters and they were like, okay, well the

first letters are all consonants, so it can't be the first letter. So

Robert Lee: Right,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: they looked at all the, uh, ending letters and they saw that there were vowels and consonants, and then they just anagram it, sconce and got it right away. right. which is another really creative way to get the answer for that puzzle.

It's not exactly brute forcing because there's a certain amount of solving that happens there.

Robert Lee: Yeah. That's Right. That's right. Yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: were some steps that you had to take. It wasn't just checking every single permutation.

Barry Joseph: That was the last in order of all the puzzles

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: worked through all those puzzles with my puzzle

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: It took us three and a half hours, not 'cause it took that long to solve them all, but because after every puzzle we analyzed it,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Teach

Barry Joseph: me I would say to them about this type of puzzle and tell me. What it should tell us about who Stephen Sondheim was. So for our last audio clip of the day, let's listen to them at the end of three and a half hours, reflecting on what it told them about who Stephen Sondheim was.

What was it like to do this? Anything you wanna share from the experience?

Andrew Parr: You really get the personality of the puzzle creator in these puzzles. So it's kind of like he's here with us and he's watching over our shoulders.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: That's true. You feel like he's right here, don't you? You feel right now during this whole session he is chuckling and, you know, chuckling at the things we get lost on and uh, yeah.

You do feel happily,

Andrew Parr: happily tormenting us, but ultimately. Wanting us to win.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: Well, that's the thing. And Mark, you, you're a puzzle creator. You must respond to the fact that puzzle creators have kind of personalities you can spot. I mean, I could spot one of yours. There is a personality that you begin to feel inside and, and in any game person.

Barry Joseph: So if you didn't know Sondheim's work and you didn't know him as a person, what's the personality that you guys might each say, comes through?

Jess Butler: I think that he was just a very generous person who took the time to think and note about his friend Perry. Like it's a lot of work to create these, especially based on one person's life.

That's a lot of thoughtfulness and. Very giving and playful to create something for friends. That's going to be like the highlight of the event or the evening.

Andrew Parr: It seems like he did this for others. He didn't do this to be in the spotlight. He created this wonderful thing, and it's for other people to celebrate their achievements and their intelligence, and having those aha moments and feeling like they've accomplished something.

Mark Halpin: I think Jess kind of hit the nail on the head. The whole thing feels generous. Right? At one point, another constructor said, when a solver has finished a puzzle, you don't want them saying, boy, the constructor was smart. You want them to say, boy, I was smart, right. For solving it. And so it's sort of an act of generosity to hand someone that, right?

That, that little gift of, here's the thing you can solve, you will get there. I will take you by the hand and get you there, and then you'll have fun solving it. And that makes you feel good about you. Right? And beyond that, there's just a playfulness and a wittiness that comes through in everything.

Richard Maltby, Jr.: Generosity is certainly a key word. Playfulness is the other one. It was interesting. There was a, a memorial service for him in New York that didn't involve any music. It was just 10 people who came up, who knew him at different moments in his life. The thing that. Was repeated and it was kind of a surprise 'cause you expected all sorts of other things was how much fun he was, how much fun he was to have as a friend.

The people who knew him when they were children would say it would come and do anagram games with them when they were eight or nine or 10. What they missed more than anything was not the addition or the brilliance or any of the other things. It was just how much fun it was. What you get from this is the playfulness of him.

And the other thing which is sort of left out in all of the appreciations of him as a writer or musicals, is that he's an entertainer. When all is said and done, he's writing for the audience so that they will have a good time. That involves using all of his wit and addition and his cleverness and everything else, but he knows that he's failed.

If he hasn't given you a good time, as Mark says, you come out thinking. How smart I was to have done it. That's part of the fun, you know, it gives you the challenge, but then lets, you have the fun of solving it. I guess what I would take away from more than anything is exactly what I took away from that memorial, which is you just miss how much fun it was.

I'm so grateful to be invited to participate in this. I can't tell you. It's just such a gift, you know, and it's, he's here, you know? Here.

Robert Lee: It's beautiful. It's, that's a really, you know, it's a beautiful thing to hear these people who knew him. yeah, playing through the game reveals a side of him as an artist. that was not necessarily the most obvious thing from looking at his work as a writer. That there clearly is another side of who he was that was expressed through the games that he created. It makes me think a lot about that none of us is just one person, And the world sort of forces us to, it's particularly for artists for some reason, the world seems to force you to label yourself as something, I'm a game designer, I'm a musical theater writer, I'm a novelist when the truth of the matter is that most of us who have creative minds , our interests in our brains are going everywhere.

I'm thinking about the first conversation that I had Barry when we met, and we were talking about the fact that in interviews, that when somebody tried to ask Sondheim about games, there was always a kind of self-effacing thing that he just started doing, which was, oh, I do those for fun.

That's not what I do professionally. And it's one of the things that I'm trying to break down in my students to say well, wait a minute. No. the thing that you do for fun, that is a huge part of what makes you an artist,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right.

Robert Lee: right? It's this weird thing. I find myself doing it all the time.

I apologize a lot of times for being somebody who loves games. I always say, oh, I'm like an amateur game designer. Why would I say that? You know, I don't say I'm an amateur musical theater writer. It would never occur to me to do that.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right?

I will say there's

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: the word amateur that

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: play down because being part of this community, and it's like I am a professional game designer. I am not a professional musical theater writer. I can say that I'm an amateur musical theater writer, right? Because

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: a musical and it's

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Um, but I can say that I'm the amateur musical theater writer because I AM, right. It's like I'm a professional game designer. I'm not a professional theater person. And I think it's okay to do that. Like you were just talking about how he would say that this is my hobby and as a game designer, I looked at these games and these are the games of a hobbyist.

But that's wonderful, right? Like that's a good thing, right? Why is it a bad thing to be a passionate person who has hobbies that they love? You don't have to be a professional top of your

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: scene in every single thing you touch. Sometimes you can just do things 'cause they're good and fun and You enjoy them.

Robert Lee: Yeah. Yeah,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I love

Robert Lee: yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: who is a master in one domain, you know, like he never tried to cross into that domain, either.

Robert Lee: And yet, I would also say that sometimes as a musical theater writer, like sometimes the most amazing discoveries are made by people who are writing a musical for the first time. Right,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right,

Robert Lee: Because the other trap is that when you start specializing in something and you get too into it and you can't see the forest for the trees anymore. right.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: yeah,

Robert Lee: and so I hear everything that you're saying. Yes, absolutely. That what we need to do is we need to maybe destigmatize the word amateur, Right.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: yeah,

Robert Lee: And, and to say, and to say no, it's actually really, really valuable to have some things that you're an amateur at and some things that you're a professional at. But the key thing I think that you need to do is you need to let the professional in you connect to the amateur in you because there are gonna be things that you learn, right? There are things that I'm learning all the time from playing games and from trying to design games and trying to conceive of games and write them.

There are things that I'm constantly learning about writing musical theater

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

Robert Lee: versa,

right?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: But once you start to get to a certain level of professionalism in your chosen field, that's the power of being an amateur. Is the enforced humility of saying, I'm not an expert in this. Oh yeah. How do I go to experts and say, Hey, I don't know what I'm talking about. How do I do this?

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: And what a good thing that is for all of us to have as part of our artistic

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: to be bad at something and remember what it is to be bad at something, and to remember what it is to ask professionals what it's like to do it well,

Robert Lee: Yeah. Yeah. But also to remember what it is to love something, Right, And that's the other thing, like right now, you. know, I, I have to say that, right? I'm in a phase of my life where I love games in a way that I can't say that I love musical theater. I mean, I, of course I love musical theater, but I, what I mean is I love musical theater as a form and I love creating in it.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right?

Robert Lee: But, you know, nowadays, if you gave me a choice, you know, as to am I gonna buy a ticket to go see a show, or I'm gonna, am I gonna have game night with four friends? I'm much more likely to say, you know what? I think game night sounds great.

Do you know what I mean?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: you. Yeah. Like in a

Robert Lee: Yeah.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: musicals can surprise me sometimes in a way that games can't, right.

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I've seen so many of these things, and it's like, oh, that's a, this, that's a, that, you know, and instantly you start to categorize them. It looks like, you

Robert Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

And also the other thing that like, really as I'm listening to that last interview, when they say, oh, he feels like he's in the room with us. Like, it, it's something that, to me, it's also really fascinating. You, as somebody who's interested in these different forms, what is possible in certain forms that is maybe not so possible with others.

Like, I think that when you go and see a show, there's something about the experience of going and seeing a show, a musical,

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: or a traditional theater piece where I don't know that we would ever say, oh, I feel like that person is in the room with us. But there is something about playing a really engaging, wonderful game.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: Because, in a weird way, when you solve the puzzle, or when you win the game, there's this weird connection because you're like, oh, the person who put this thing together thinks the way that I do. Like we think in the same way.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Robert Lee: And so it feels like Yeah. It feels like they're in the room with you, which is

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

Robert Lee: something, again, it's not something that happens in my form. And that's something that's a beautiful thing to appreciate, every form has these different, what do you call them? Like? Um, yes, that's a good word.

And the part of the joy of being an artist, and I know that you're in the same place that I am, Kelly. And one of the joys of being an artist is to say, I'm not limited by one thing. For you, you have the theater side of you, you have the game side of you, you have the museum side of you, you have all of these different sides of you,

Right,

And they all go into making you who you are, and they all go into the art that you create.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: right.

Barry Joseph: Thank you Kelly and Robert for letting me be in the front row of this rich and often challenging conversation.

Robert Lee: It's been hugely, it's fun for me.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah. Yeah. So fun to chat with you guys.

I've really enjoyed looking at these puzzles. This has been a lot of fun and great chatting with you.

Barry Joseph: And thank you dear listeners, for joining us today for Matching Minds with Sondheim, the podcast. If you can't wait for the next episode to drop, then please pick up a copy of my book, hit us up on the socials, Facebook and Instagram, and please comment and like the podcast on whatever platform you use.

It helps us out immensely. would also like to thank everyone who contributed behind the scenes to this episode, specifically transcription and text editing by Jenny Westfall, the musical stingers composed by Mateo Chavez Lewis, and the theme song to our podcast with lyrics and music by Colm Molloy, and sung by the one and only Ann Morrison, who created the role of Mary and Merrily We Roll Along. Until next time, remember, someone is on your side, especially when matching minds with Sondheim.

George Lee Andrews: We were there.

Marty Morris Lee: Oh, it's so much fun.

Etai Benson: There's no better way to represent his brilliance than through puzzles.

Colm Molloy: I feel like he was probably more obsessed with puzzles than musicals. Maybe that's heresy.

Will Shortz: He was a brilliant puzzle solver. and a great mind.

George Lee Andrews: It was quite amazing when you walked Into his apartment because it was full of games and puzzles.

Michael Mitnick: When Sondheim started to build the cryptic crosswords for New York Magazine,

Stephen Rodosh: his treasure hunts were legendary.

George Lee Andrews: Everybody was just running around screaming and laughing and having

Erin Ortman: it's almost ridiculous to be like, yeah, I went on a scavenger hunt created by Stephen Sondheim.

Michael Counts: You know, in some ways you could almost consider him like the sort of inventor of the, very form of escape rooms because he

Taylor Myers: Stephen Sondheim blurted out when the final exit door opened, but I wanna stay.

Marty Morris Lee: How cool that we're sitting here trying to figure this game out again!

Richard Maltby, Jr.: I, have to say, I'm so grateful to be invited to, participate in this. I can't tell you. It's just such a gift. You know, and he's here, you know, he's here.

Ann Morrison: Matching minds with Sondheim. Tell a friend and quiz him. Test him on his anagram. He's pure hedonism. His songs and his shows. Mary Flynn, Mama Rose. Everybody already knows they're superbly designed. But where would we be without a puzzle to bring us glee. Even someone in a tree would believe we need Steve and his mind.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: It really was like a core memory stalking Stephen Sondheim around the Museum of Natural History, hiding behind exhibits. Uh, yeah, it happened.