Kellian Adams Pletcher: There's no doubt about it, Sondheim is in charge. And he wants to stay in charge. And he never gives up that power in any of his designs.

Barry Joseph: Welcome to Matching Minds with Sondheim, the podcast. I'm 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 Parlor Games. Actually, we're not just gonna respond to audio clips, we're gonna play with them. And in fact, play with each other, and with all of you. Welcome to my Halloween party, a perfect time to throw a Stephen Sondheim-styled evening of parlor games. And these parlor games are the games I write about in my book. Every single one. These are games that Stephen Sondheim designed, iterated or just loved to play or admired. And in fact, it is very appropriate that we're doing it on Halloween because the most famous of all of Stephen Sondheim's game parties happened on October 31st, 1968. That was his treasure hunt. We're not doing treasure hunts tonight, but why don't you come on in. Have a seat. Your costume looks fantastic. Have some cheese dip. I bought some stuff at Trader Joe's. I've got some really fun flavored seltzer. Oh, you like my costume? Thank you so much. Can you figure it out? That's right, the top half of me looks like President Obama. And yes, the bottom half is a custodian worker. And you can see his name is Harry Jobs P. But it's a little mixed up. That's right! President Obama mixed up Harry Jobs P. I'm a cryptic crossword clue. We all know President Obama's first name. It's Barry ! And mixing up Harry Jobs P? That's Barry Joseph. You solved the clue. You're so good. Wait. Oh, do you hear that? That's the doorbell. It looks like our first guest has arrived. Come on in. David, is that you?

David Spira: Yeah. Hi. Am I the first one here?

Barry Joseph: No, no. Look at all the wonderful people around us.

David Spira: Good. Good. Good.

Barry Joseph: But I didn't recognize you in your costume. Tell us about it.

David Spira: I'm a meat pie.

Barry Joseph: Sweeny Todd!

David Spira: Yeah. My wife Lisa was gonna come with me and she had a whole costume, she was gonna be a razor, but, uh, I'm just kind of a half a costume.

Barry Joseph: Oh, that's great. We haven't seen you since our episode on Jigsaw Puzzles. How have you been since then?

David Spira: Just out there puzzling. Writing about puzzles. Doing all the things I do.

Barry Joseph: Putting it all together. Thanks, David. Oh, David, did you hear the doorbell? Do you mind getting it?

David Spira: Yeah, sure.

Barry Joseph: Who is it, David?

David Spira: It's Kellian. Hi.

Barry Joseph: Hi, Kellian.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh, hi guys. Hey, how you doing? Oh, sorry, David, could you hold my umbrella for a second? I'm sorry its-.

Barry Joseph: Your umbrella. What is your costume?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh god, Barry, uh-oh. We're wearing the same costume. Oh this is...

Barry Joseph: we are?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Embarrassing. I just really wanted to do something super clever, so I thought maybe I'd do Obama on the top and maybe you sort of like a jobs worker down below. I'm like a cryptic crossword. But I see you're also a cryptic crossword.

Barry Joseph: Well, maybe you can be across and I'll be down.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: But yeah! There we go. There we go. You're across and I'm down. Aw! It's so embarrassing. I'm really sorry, Barry. We shoulda connected before this.

Barry Joseph: It's all good. It's all good.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I'm sorry.

Barry Joseph: Kellian, I don't think we've seen you since our episode on Sondheim's Treasure Hunts. What's the latest with Club Drosselmeyer?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: That's right. Hello. Um, yeah, boy! Uh, full steam ahead on Club Drosselmeyer. We go live in almost one month and our aerialist is ready to go. Our magician working on his routine. Our script is ready. I'm a little short on tap dancers. I currently have one tap dancer and I need five tap dancers. And yeah, that's such is life. We will find it. We'll make it, we'll make it happen. We'll make it work.

Barry Joseph: Well, good luck! Were you two ready to join the rest of us to play some games?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Barry Joseph: All we need is James McCusker. Once he arrives, we'll be ready to start. The door's shaking. What's happening?

James McCusker: Hey! I was ringing the doorbell and no one answered.

Barry Joseph: And you broke the door down, James! Again.

James McCusker: The least I could do. The least I could do.

Barry Joseph: Welcome to the party. I haven't seen you since The Drama Bookshop appearance where you brought me an original 1973 ticket for The Last of Sheila in Japanese. Welcome back. It's so good to see you.

James McCusker: Oh, what a pleasure to be here. The reason I broke down the door is it speaks to my costume. If all of you'll notice, I won't be sitting this evening 'cause I'm dressed like a large, flat piece of wood. Which of course, all the Sheila fans out there, thanks to your brilliant podcast, will know that that will be a piece of wood that's in the priest box, but not the door. Thanks so much for inviting me, Barry. It looks like a great crowd. Looking forward to the evening.

Barry Joseph: Thanks, James! So today we're gonna explore three parlor games, some designed by Sondheim, some he enjoyed hosting. We'll look at what they together might tell us about the personality and mind of Stephen Sondheim. Obviously, it's a bit of a, dare I say, puzzle to recreate party games for an audio podcast. Some designs lend themselves well to the medium while others ran from it. So, let's see what we can figure out. I should add that all of these are available in my book. Before we jump in, is there anything any of you care to share about your own relationship with parlor games, playing, designing, or best of all hosting.

David Spira: I mean, I went through a big party game phase back in the day. I think at this point, parlor games are generally referred to as party games. I, too, was taken in by the wave of Cards Against Humanity about 10 years ago.

James McCusker: The history of party games fascinates me. The idea that there's an element of wit and creativity. They're interactive. They're social. And I couldn't agree more with Dave's idea that game nights are becoming more and more popular. And these game nights seem to be moving away, at least in my circle, from board games to doing more interactive stuff. Like a parlor game.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I love that. My first interaction with parlor games, and I would totally say that parlor games are maybe slightly different than party games. 'Cause a parlor game is something where you really don't need anything, right? You just kind of randomly decide that you're gonna play. Whereas a party game, sometimes you have elements or a board or something like that. And first parlor games that I ever played were from the American Girls Handybook, which yeah, like old school, like Girl Scout kind of book . Turn of the Century. And you know, as a kid up in Northern New Hampshire where we really didn't have a lot of, you know, I didn't have board game resources. You, it was hard to go out and buy them 'cause everything's so far away, right? Uh. So Parlor games were something that I could like, play with my sister or my friends or, you know, just randomly bring it up in the middle of a fourth grade classroom when we had free period or something. Like, I got a lot of mileage from the American Girls Handybook.

Barry Joseph: Kellian, right behind you in the kitchen, there's this gray fog coming into our living room. It's getting closer and closer. You know what, let's everyone grab my hand. Hold your breath and let's walk into it together on the count of three. 1, 2, 3, Oh, here we are now. It's the 1960s. We're at Sondheim's House. Sondheim was known for throwing games nights in the late sixties and early seventies. He'd invite friends over and play host. So, let's look around at his five story 19th-Century Row house in Turtle Bay, which is on 49th Street between Second and Third Avenue. Oh be careful, James. Don't knock too loud on the wall. You might disturb his neighbor, Katherine Hepburn! Now Melissa Erico, the performer, beautifully described in her liner notes for her album, 'Sondheim In the City' , what it was like to be in his house just a few months before it was sold. She said, " walking into the house, I immediately sensed a touch Pre-Raphealite. The foyer is dark and narrow. A wood panel tunnel with a deep blue tiled ceiling, a kind of night sky effect with dark sconces. It reminded me of the interior at college". She went to Yale. "Where dark wood told you to enter a meditative state to turn inward to your books. Across a pleasant living room, more for reading than music-making, sat a round table. More like a poker or card table than for a children eating cereal or pizza with friends. The home was an adult home, a man's home, and it was beautiful." Ready for our first game?

James McCusker: Bring it on.

Barry Joseph: Let's look at the listening game. Now. For the listening game, we're gonna let Stephen Sondheim tell us about it. We're gonna listen to an audio clip from an interview he did at the public theater with Tony Kushner, providing an example of what he meant by calling someone a genius.

Tony Kushner: I wanna ask you about something you just said when you said that Jerry Robbins was the only genius...?

Stephen Sondheim: for me what it means is a man of endless invention. He never stopped. I used to have game parties. He would come down, he would invent games in front of you and games nobody ever invented before. And I don't mean acting games, I mean game-games, I mean competitive games. One night we had a game party. We played charade, something like that. He said, I got an idea. And he sat us all in chairs, about eight people. And behind us he made noises that you hear every day in your life. So he gives each pad paper, pencil, said, okay, what are these? And it would things like an umbrella opening, unwrapping a toothbrush, a lighter. Clicking open. It was a wonderful game because he was listening to what you had never listened to before. Mm-hmm. That's the kind of thing he did all the time. He always invented, and that's of course what he did on the stage. He never stopped that, and that's to me what I mean by the word genius which is a constant flow of ideas.

Barry Joseph: A constant flow of ideas. That's what being a genius meant to Stephen Sondheim. And his example? A game designed by Jerome Robbins. Which you would think we could easily do here for a podcast. But, it turns out with these microphones and today's AI powered sound editing, well, it's just a mess. So I'd love to chat with you about what you think about this idea of the listening game and what comes to mind when you hear Stephen Sondheim talk about it.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Can you show us the rules?

Barry Joseph: All right, so there's eight stages. Does someone wanna read the overview?

David Spira: Players sit in a row of chairs guessing the origins of the sounds made behind them on everyday objects by the host.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: In advance of the game, the host should play with everyday objects, exploring the sounds they make, opening an umbrella, unwrapping a toothbrush, lighting a lighter, et cetera.

James McCusker: At the party, assemble the items out of sight, along with other materials.

Barry Joseph: Arrange players on chairs. Position them in a row facing the same direction so the host can easily pass behind them.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: For each round, the host will take out an object and, out of sight from the guests, create a sound behind their heads. With each object, guests will write on their paper and guess as to the sound's origin.

James McCusker: Once the rounds have concluded, the host reveals each of the objects.

Barry Joseph: And finally the guests tally up their score. And the player with the highest score wins. I had so much fun at the New York Public Library for the performing arts, when we did a workshop for Sondheim's Parlor games and we got to play this in front of a crowd. And then again at NYU with their graduate students in both game design and musical theater writing. An audience of about maybe a hundred or so. It's much fun having a bunch of people sit in front of the audience in that context and bring out all sorts of objects, just like as described here, and see both the reaction of the people watching, in the rest of the event, and also the reactions to the people who are the ones who are having to guess. I found it thrilling.

James McCusker: Can you give us an example of an object or two that you used?

Barry Joseph: Sure. So an object you would see me holding if you were in the audience is this. And if I shake it, which is what looks like a pill container. And if you it, it sounds like a maraca, which the microphone does not pick up well. But it works perfectly behind someone's head. They're all everyday objects that you recognize. And it was kind of challenging to find an object that makes an interesting sound, but could belong to more than one object, and one that everyone would recognize if you saw it. But you might not guess it right away.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: S uch a musician's kind of game, isn't it? Right. I love that, that like somebody who's hearing the world around him. That it would occur to him that a toothbrush has a special sound and that you may or may not be able to recognize that. Like, that's a great game. I wanna try that.

James McCusker: I was thinking the same thing. You know Jerome Robbins, I'm thinking choreographer, director, movement. And as you were saying, this idea of sound as well. It's clever as all get out. It really is. And I like how Sondheim in that clip talked about just of the moment it just comes to him. It's just- constantly full of ideas, spouting them out and making them alive, much like a director or choreographer is doing when making out moves in front of the mirror. Right?

Barry Joseph: And I love any designed experience that gets us to focus one of our senses on the world in a new way. I've worked in museums for a long time, and part of what I'm trying to get people to do in museums is look at things and think critically about what they're seeing. This is a game that's helping you think about what you're listening to. And also I think, reflect on how much we don't pay attention to the everyday sounds throughout our life.

David Spira: There is also something flirty or intimate about this. You know, you're behind somebody. You get up really close. Depending upon who you are with there is also a lot of opportunity for other things to happen in those brief moments of putting that sound into someone's ear..

Barry Joseph: When I was standing behind the audience members who volunteered when it was at NYU, I felt that kind of intimacy that you were talking about, David. I was getting quite close to people who were complete strangers and of course, also were told not to look at me when I was doing it. They had to trust me..

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes.

Barry Joseph: And I had be respectful of that.

David Spira: Yeah, I have to imagine that like doing this on stage at a university, that is a very different environment than doing this when you are at a party amongst friends and friends of friends.

Barry Joseph: Let's now talk about "Running Charades". Now, I think we all know charades. But the traditional style of charades is not what Sondheim liked to play. He liked a different version. His version he called "Running Charades", and I'll read you a quote from him about it in this context. Imagine that he's at a social event and he's chatting with Meryl Streep.

Barry Joseph: "I play a different kind of charades than she does. I play running charades in which there are two teams that are in relay. She likes to play the kind where her team makes up all the things, and then our team acts them out. And they giggle at what assholes we are as we're doing them. And I try to inculcate them into Running Charades, charades in which one person before the party makes a list of charades, and then each team chooses a captain. They go together and they each go back to their team and act out whatever the first on the list is. Whichever team gets it first, the player that guessed it on that team runs to the person who made the list."

Kellian Adams Pletcher: " It was too complicated to do when you're drunk as we were. You couldn't possibly do it."

Barry Joseph: Kellian, and you get the Oscar. That was great. Now, I've heard other people talk about running charades before. Here in this context, Sondheim is saying he created it. I don't know if that's true or not. I think there's a board game version you could buy. I'm curious if anyone here has any thoughts on charades in general and this style of how Sondheim liked to play it.

David Spira: I don't know the history of charades at all, but it does seem like the kind of game that is a good structure for people to augment and manipulate to the needs of their audience. And I would have to imagine that this is the kind of thing that lots of people could come to this conclusion. But I mean, I can easily imagine someone thinking up that this is a fun twist on it. It sounds like a good time.

James McCusker: Much like Barry, I've heard of running charades. But I've never played it. I've never heard of anyone playing it. And I do like the idea that it's static charades. No matter how much you're moving, you're still pretty much have both feet on the ground. And I like this idea of Sondheim coming up with this idea of movement along with the game. Just to add that, I don't know, sense of panic, sense dashing to and fro.

Barry Joseph: So James, when you describe it, you're noticing that it ups the level of tension?

James McCusker: Yeah.

Barry Joseph: Which is interesting for me 'cause when I hear it, I see how it ups the level of engagement. I think what Sondheim didn't like about traditional is the sitting and waiting for it to be your team's turn.

James McCusker: Yeah.

Barry Joseph: But in this game, it's always your turn and it never ends.. Which is also a way to describe cutthroat anagrams. In anagrams, you're waiting for it to be your turn, but in cutthroat, you're always on. So I find it really interesting as a theme throughout the games he liked to play and often the experiences he designed . It was all about maximizing engagement for everyone, for as much as possible. And this is just a really good example of that.

David Spira: With all games played in a party environment especially, keeping people engaged when it's not their turn is sort of the big challenge. I think when a lot of people say, I don't like to play games, I think that's a big part of why.. There's a lot of different reasons why a person might not wanna engage in games in a party environment. But I do think that the boredom that comes between turns, especially when like your turn is dead, when it's not your turn, you are like, you're dead. You're not doing anything at all. That is a big turnoff, certainly for me, when it comes to party games. And I think for a lot of people.

James McCusker: We also have to think about when Parlor games usually are being played. After lunch, after dinner. We've had a few drinks. So there's that sense in the air as well. So, you're defining this kind of dead space, Dave, that's very interesting. That's more than likely true.

Barry Joseph: Well, to keep us all engaged, I think it's time for me to fulfill my promise... and let us actually play a game together.

David Spira: Games, games, games, games!

Barry Joseph: We're gonna play Bartletts. In order to play Bartletts first, we need to introduce it, and to do that, Kellian, I need to ask you if you're willing to play Meryl Streep again?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Always.

Barry Joseph: So again, Stephen Sondheim and Meryl Streep are at a social event. They're having a conversation. Cue scene.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: " Did you ever play that one at Natasha's, which is my favorite game, we still play it. We call it Natasha's game, uh, which is that you go through the house and you get a bunch of books and you have two teams and you open the book. One person is the reader. And they open the book and they tell you the title, the author, and then you write down what you think is the first line of the book. It is the most wonderful game. You'd be good at that."

Barry Joseph: "I can't wait to interrupt you."

Kellian Adams Pletcher: " I noticed that".

Barry Joseph: " This game was invented by..."

Kellian Adams Pletcher: - "By you."

Barry Joseph: " By me and Maryanne Madden".

Kellian Adams Pletcher: " Goddamnit."

" There used to be a game called "Dictionary". And one evening, Mary Ann Madden said, why use a dictionary? Why don't we do it out of Bartlett's Quotations? You take Bartlett's and one person reads an author. And then you write down the quote from that author... What makes it better than you think, almost 90% of the authors in Bartletts are people you have never heard of. Elpha May Sergeant, 1853 to 1886. Lord something! So, you can make up anything. You don't have to be well read, which I'm not. The very first one I played, up at Leonard Bernstein's house, Jamie, who was 11 years old, won! That's over Lenny and Felicia and me."

Alright folks, shall we play?

James McCusker: Yes.

David Spira: Let's do it.

James McCusker: Let's do this.

Barry Joseph: To get started, we need a round leader. Who wants to be the round leader?

David Spira: I offer myself a tribute.

James McCusker: Oh! Thank you, David.

Barry Joseph: So here I'm gonna throw to you, it's pretty heavy. Get ready. The Bartlett's book of quotations. You ready? Here you go.

David Spira: Oh look. Upper body strength is not my actual strength.

Barry Joseph: I didn't know you could catch things with your left ear. That was amazing. Okay, so David, here's what you gotta do. Open up the book and look for someone you don't know. No William Shakespeare. No Bob Dylan. Find someone you think none of us will know. And also pick a short quote because you're gonna have to write it down. Do you see one that you like?

David Spira: I see one that I like.

Barry Joseph: Alright. So what we need you to do is tell us the name of the person, the year that they were born and if they died, but do not tell us the quote. Okay? So go ahead and tell us the name of the person and when they lived.

David Spira: Okay. Hopefully I'm pronouncing this correct, but Hans Johst. Johst, J-O-H-S-T. Born in 1890 and died in 1978.

Barry Joseph: Okay. so Kellian and James, the three of us, here's our job now. We have to write secretly to David, a quote that was so meaningful, so important that it was printed in this book, that we are gonna try and get everyone else to guess as the correct one. So we're gonna secretly give it to David, and then once David has them all, he will read all four of them. And when you do David, randomly mix them up, put a number before each one, and then after we'll all guess which one's the real one. And I'm gonna put in a fake one, of course. And if people guess mine, I'm gonna get a point. And in fact, listeners at home get to guess as well, you'll also get points if you are able to succeed. David, you will score two points if no one guesses the correct quote, or zero points if anyone does guess correctly. But the rest of us will score one point if we guess correctly, plus one point for each other player who voted for their fake quote.

David Spira: It's the scoring system from Dirty Laundry on Dropout.

James McCusker: Exactly.

Barry Joseph: Alright, so let's go ahead and, uh, take the time we need to write a quote. Tell us the information again.

David Spira: So this is Hans Johst, 1890 to 1978.

Barry Joseph: David, let us know when you've received them all.

David Spira: Yep, I have them. Okay, now I have these in a list, one through four. tell you the number. I'll read the quote, and then you will all have to guess which one is the real quote. Number one: "the night is cold, the wine is warm. Happiness". Number two: " all new ideas are derivative, except for mine". Number three: " when I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol." And number four: "the daffodils are most lovely on this side of the Seine, especially after the rains."

Barry Joseph: David, give us a countdown and then we will say, and hold up at the same time with our fingers what we think the answer is. And listeners at home, just shout yours out loud.

David Spira: 3, 2, 1, reveal. The real one is three.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Woo. Yay.

Barry Joseph: I hope listeners at home did better than me. And then we do all of our scoring. And then, whoever got the most points becomes the next round leader. And we play again.

James McCusker: There we go.

Barry Joseph: And that's how Bartletts has played.

James McCusker: It's a clever game. I love the idea of using creativity. So I was like, okay. The guy was born in 1890. But, he passed in 1978. So that I was the one who authored the dare I say, brilliant, cold night, warm wine. I dunno why I was thinking of that. Right? How to get as, I don't know, fluid as possible.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah. I mean, it is, it's really close to the dictionary game. But the element of guessing what a person might say just based on a name and a time period is kind of fun. You know, I feel like all of these Sondheim games really have something in common, and that's people, right? Predicting how people might respond. And there's something so silly in a good way about all of them. They're all very, very social. These are hyper social games, you know? And I think that that might be where the, you know, everybody talks about genius, genius all the time. you know very well that whenever anybody talks about genius, I'm always like, mm, grumble, grumble. But that really is Sondheim's genius, right? He's a master of human interaction. He knows what people will respond to. Right? Like, like even if they're not brilliant games none of them are duds. Like all of them people will respond to in a social environment. And so whether or not the mechanic itself is good, like he intuitively knows that people at a party are gonna go wild for this. And he's right! Like all of these are really very, very social.

James McCusker: There's also this, reading the other people in the room. 'Cause that "culture gun" idea, I was thinking, wow, that's so clever. Did somebody in this room construct that?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right..

James McCusker: As a red herring, so-

David Spira: Well,

James McCusker: You're reading people as well.

David Spira: It's funny you mention that because Barry, you, and this is not a critique at all, you handed me the book, told me to pick a quote, and then told me the rules. And the quote that I picked was one that I found very funny and very stodgy in a very like, intelligent but grumpy old man sort of way.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: But if I had realized what the structure of the game was, I had kind of a choice. I looked at the quote below it, which I think would have confused you more. The quote below It was from Robert Lay 1890 to 1945. And that quote was: "strength through Joy". And I almost switched to it because I thought that that would actually fit the vibe of the people in the room more, that it would fall in line more with what you would all be writing.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Interesting.

David Spira: But I decided to go with the one that I thought was funnier for the game. But also I think the, even just the word pistol and not gun is sort of telegraphing.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right.

Barry Joseph: I love what you're all saying and what I'd want to add is this game and some of the others we've explored really speaks to me 'cause they're all about giving the people in the party an opportunity to generate something creatively from themselves and then enjoy what they're each sharing.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right.

Barry Joseph: So there's an appreciation of what we each contributed to the game that makes it successful. That doesn't just rely on the person who created it. So essentially there's systems for people to be excellent and enjoy each other's excellence.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm. What I like about this one, I feel like this is a total window into this designer's mind, right? Because here, he took an existing game, it's a successful game, and the mechanic of this game is look for an object, match it with the very clear thing that it matches with, and he swapped that to look for an unknown person. Imagine what that person might say. So he took like a very sort of, right-brained, didactic, kind of like mathematical game, where there's a very clear answer and he just made a slight tweak to make it hyper social and much more interesting to play.

David Spira: I'll add my little piece of advice for playing games in a party environment. If you are ever looking at a choice between the more competitive decision and the more fun decision. Choose the more fun decision 10 times outta 10.

Barry Joseph: Alright. I think a fun decision will be to move on to the next game. "Camouflage" or "hidden in plain sight." Now to understand Camoflauge, we'll hear directly from someone who used to play it with Sondheim: writer, director, cryptic-crossword constructor, Richard Maltby Jr.

Richard Maltby Jr: And then another game, a Camouflage game, which I've done a few in my life. I think this is from Victorian times. You take a whole bunch of, recognizable standard objects. It needs to be a house that has a lot of sort of elaborate stuff in it. You hide these things in absolute plain sight. But because of where you put it, you can't figure out what it is.. Like, one of them was an oatmeal raisin cookie. This was a house that had a lot of pine paneling. And right in the middle of the fireplace, there was a little wooden circle. Right in the middle of that, he had put the oatmeal raisin cookie with a little pin through it. So that it was just sitting there, but it looked like a piece of the carving. You would go up and, you know, stare at it. The only rule was that you're supposed to try very hard not to go, ah! When you realize I'm looking right at it. I mean, it's just so elegant, you know? And so upper class, 'cause it only works in kind of elaborate houses, you know?

Barry Joseph: It is kind of like a real world point and click adventure, right?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah, I love that line. It's an upper class thing because it only works in elaborate houses! Because he also pointed out that this is a Victorian game and, uh, of course a lot of these old parlor games originate from Victorian times. I think most people's point of reference is probably a Christmas Carol, right? Where Dickens writes about the party that they have that Scrooge shows up at, and everybody's playing these parlor games, right? That's sort of the window that a lot of people have into Victorian parlor games. But of course, I think there is this sense that parlor games are for the wealthy.

David Spira: You need to have a combination of leisure time, that you don't have if you're constantly working to keep food on the table. And then you need to have enough stuff. And you to be able to invite people over where you are also spending leisure time with people over.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right. There was also, and this always struck me even as a kid, reading the American Girls Handybook, that a lot of these Victorian parlor games are sort of an excuse for young men and women to interact with each other in sort of a structured way, but maybe a little bit deviant, blind man's bluff, right? Like this is a very structured way for people to grab at each other . Sometimes there were these Victorian parlor games where they would pass around a woman's shoe when you had to guess what it was. But you know, that's like very, very intimate for Victorian times. And so, yeah, it is interesting to me how these things tie sometimes into class.

David Spira: It's also sort of a look at my stuff!

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes!

David Spira: Spend time studying my home, observe my collection!

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Of course.

David Spira: Of fine and wonderful things. And look for the thing that is not fine and wonderful.

James McCusker: Let me hide the thimble amongst my butterfly collection in the den. Yes.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Barry Joseph: I've thought about it before, but when you describe it that way, David, that lines up really well with one of the common types of solutions that Stephen Sondheim liked to design. James I know you know it well, from The Last of Sheila. It appears often many of his treasure hunts where to solve a puzzle presented by Stephen Sondheim, we have to figure out what the hidden pattern is without even knowing that there is a pattern. And then once we know what the pattern is, we look for the exception. So what you just described, David, is this is a game where you're looking around the room. The pattern is things that belong here. And you're looking again for the exception.

David Spira: Yeah. So it's funny because I really like the idea of this game. My house is a little too minimalistic for me to pull this off.

James McCusker: Same here.

David Spira: That is definitely the reaction that I had as I was listening. I was like, I would love to do this. I don't think I can do this.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right. And also your house has to be curated enough that you can hide a cookie in just the right spot. Right?

David Spira: Yeah, like, you know, you, you need to have like your soldier statue at, so you could put the thimble as a helmet on that.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, exactly. I feel like people in my house, people would accidentally find a stray cookie. Is this one - no it's not part of the game!

David Spira: I mean in, in your home, I imagine also you're kind of then hiding things amongst the puzzle collection and

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh my God!

David Spira: And people are handling the puzzle collection.

James McCusker: I also like the aspect of holding a secret. I see the cookie. Oh my gosh, there's the cookie and I have to pretend it's not there. So this idea of social acting and there's just a lot with this game I find incredibly clever. I've never played it. I'd have to rent a home to do it, but-

David Spira: I'm also picturing like, what does course of play look like between different groups? 'Cause you could have the people who are like really being competitive about it and like visibly looking. You can also have the people who are acting like they aren't looking at all, but they're looking quite hard.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: And then you have the people who aren't looking at all, you know, they feel like they're above this, you know, trivial little game. And I, I'd be curious to see how that plays out amongst different groups of people.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I love that Steven Sondheim has this very like A-list, high social status, is like, Steven Sondheim asks you to do something, you're gonna do it, and he invites you to his house. And then he says, okay. Look for the cookie. And everybody's like, well, Stephen asked me to find the cookie.

David Spira: But there is this interesting, like implied like snoop around my home type thing going on.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes, definitely. Definitely.

David Spira: I'd be curious to see what the boundaries are. Like how do you, like, where do you set the boundaries? It's all within the living space. It's all please don't go into the bedrooms. You won't find anything in the bathroom.

Barry Joseph: And there's also content boundaries. Mary Rodgers, who was very close with Stephen Sondheim throughout almost their entire lives, they met when they were teenagers, describes in her biography "Shy" about one time when she chose, let's say, risque objects. I think she said she put her IUD around a lamp.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Now that's, that's something you would be surprised to find.

Barry Joseph: Right now, speaking of boundaries, we're gonna move on to a game called "Hostilities". Parlor games are largely oral history that are passed down, which allows me to read about someone, like Mary Rodgers talking about a game she played, and then me figuring out what might the rules be to get there. So, what we're gonna share is my understanding of the rules of "Hostilities", that I've adapted from hearing people talk about it. I'll sum this up in three sentences. In this party game, everyone will play, including the host. It is best played with between 5 and 10 people. It is designed for a group of intimates, to be played among people who know each other, and who are willing to use their knowledge to risk causing embarrassment. Alright, Kellian, can you start reading the rules for us please?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Uh, number one, the host arranges players in a circle, including the host and places a bowl in the center of the circle. Number two. The host assigns all players a unique number, counting up from one.

James McCusker: Number three. Each player should write his number on a small slip of paper. Then place this slip of paper in front of him so all can see the number assigned. For example, if ten people are playing, the numbers will be from one to ten. Number four. Each player now rips up small scraps of paper. One for each of the players other than himself. For example, if ten people are playing, each player rips up nine scraps of paper.

David Spira: Number five, on one side of each scrap players will lightly write down the number of the person for whom the scrap is intended. For example, if it is for my best friend's wife, and she is number six, I would write down the number six . On the flip side of each scrap write down one impertinent question, then fold it closed, with only the number showing. A question can be repeated, but each of the nine guests might receive different questions based on personal knowledge of what might make them uncomfortable.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: When the players finish writing questions for all the other players, the scraps of paper containing these questions should be tossed into the bowl. Number eight. Once all the scraps of paper are in the bowl, one person should sort through these scraps, organizing them by number. After sorting, the person distributes the scraps to each player, giving them the scraps that corresponds to the numbers they had originally.

James McCusker: Number nine. All the players now have a collection of questions tailored them by the other players. It is time for each player to open each scrap, keeping the questions secret. Each player writes a brief answer beneath each question. Once finished, the player erases the number on the back of each scrap and returns all the folded scraps to the bowl in the center. Number ten. When everyone has answered their mail, all questions should be in the center bowl, complete with their answers and all numbers erased.

David Spira: Eleven. One at a time. Questions should be randomly picked from the middle and read aloud, along with the answers. After each one, players should try to guess who wrote the question and to whom it was addressed. Twelve. After each reading, players can choose to reveal the real writers and or the recipients... or not.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Number Thirteen. After each reading, if identities were revealed, players can also choose to play for points. Earning one point for correctly guessing either the questioner or the answerer. And three points for correctly guessing both. If a player made someone cry or drop out, perhaps give them an extra five points.

Barry Joseph: And number 14. Finally, the game ends when the questions are all revealed or when the players have laughed themselves silly and need a new activity.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh my God, he is an ace human hacker! Look at that. It's like a sleepover game, right? It's like a bunch of 10-year-old girls like, you know, revealing secrets and being like, ah, you like so and so?

David Spira: There are layers to the brutality of this game.

James McCusker: That's what I think.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

David Spira: You're addressing a specific question to a specific person. And you know all of these people, so presumably you have a sense of what will be uncomfortable for them to answer. So, that's, that's brutal. Then these are being read aloud and all of your friends are guessing who posed the question and who answered it. These are like multiple layers of cruelty. The answer that you give to that is a judgment on your friends, a very visible judgment. It's so rough.

James McCusker: And there's that other great layer too, that you can admit you wrote that question or not. I mean, this interesting idea of people staying silent. That that's now out there-

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right.

James McCusker: And I'm so uncomfortable. Right now, or it got such a reaction from the room that I decide not to reveal I put the question down. It's just ridiculous. It's wonderfully cruel.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I mean, it reminds me again like, okay, so this is Kellian speaking as a former middle school teacher, like back in the long, long ago. But one thing that's super interesting about middle schoolers is that for middle schoolers, friendship is currency, right? So when you're 11, your friends are all you own to buy, sell, or trade, right? You don't own anything else. And so, your position in that sixth grade is everything to you. And that position can be won or lost instantly, right? Like the person who has the most friends wins, least friends loses. And constantly sniping happens to try and move within that hierarchy. And it almost feels like that's what's happening here. We're sniping at a hierarchy in this game, right? we're either supporting or undercutting people trying to move social positions.

David Spira: I don't think I had enough friends in middle school to understand that that's what was happening.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: You only understand it when you're a teacher, right? When you're in it, like you're just trying to stay alive. Like when you're a teacher and you're watching it, you're like, oh my God. That's what's happening here. And I mean... it happens for grownups too, to a certain level, but it's just, you know, grownups have other things, right? It's like they have skills and experience and families and money and reputations. But 11-year-old girls don't have any of these things yet. , It's only status. That's all they own, you know?

James McCusker: Gossip is currency too as well, right?

Barry Joseph: Gossip is in his first board game that he made in the early 1950s, called "Stardom".

David Spira: Can we also not just gloss over the idea that if you make someone cry, that you get points. Yeah.

Barry Joseph: That's interpretation. Remember, wrote this version of the rules, I wrote this version of the rules in that way on purpose, David, because that's historically as often what happened. People would leave the game in tears, they'd leave the party in tears and they wouldn't wanna come to the next one. 'Cause they said, I can't handle that emotional intensity. So far we've been talking about this game from the outside. Should we take a turn now and be able to experience enough so we can talk about it from the inside? Do we dare?

David Spira: I gotta be honest with you, I don't really want to. I will if everyone else wants to, but I don't really want to. When you think about a game that has consequences. It's not who's winning and who is losing. It is the feeling of betrayal is the thing that gets really under people's skins.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah. Yeah.

David Spira: And that will stick with a lot of people. When you start looking at a game like Hostilities, the winning and losing doesn't really matter. I can't imagine that anyone really cares who is winning or who is losing. I have to imagine that you have people who are either trying to endure this game.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: Or people who are looking to get under people's skin. Either in an aggressive way or in a flirty way. Or in some kind of like power dynamics.

James McCusker: Very good.

David Spira: Like just people wanna watch the world burn. Whatever it might be. This is a game that is just extremely exposing.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is Sondheim using his power again, but in the wrong way. Right? Like the first one. He is like, come into my house, look for a cookie . And now he's like, come into my house, I'm gonna ask you whatever I want. You know, and we're talking, this is the sixties, seventies where I would say, especially for women, like, having certain things uncovered, uh, had consequences that they just don't have in 2025. I would posit the same thing is probably true for gay men. Who were also like probably part of this community. You know, like, I mean, this is almost directly going after his most vulnerable community members, right?

James McCusker: I so appreciate Barry letting us kind of really get into this and unpack it. When I entered, Barry's beautiful home this evening, I was going to make a joke and say, well, at least we're not playing hostilities. I thought that'd be like the last thing we'd be talking about. And here we're doing a deep dive. Which is wonderful. Barry knows this all too well about me, my love of The Last of Sheila, and this idea of cruelty. It's interesting to observe it. But to be actually participating in it is a different game altogether.

David Spira: my,

thoughts on "Hostilities" and why I like, I I vocalizing why I don't wanna play it is,

James McCusker: Sure.

David Spira: As a teenager, I would've relished this game. I'm very good at seeing people the way they see themselves. That is a thing that I have a very strong ability to use it to help people. But I can also use it to rip their heart out. Because when you see people the way that they see themselves. When, like that level of empathy . You can really wound people. And you know, as a teenager, I was a isolated, nerdy, lonely kid who was really good at seeing people. And not feeling very seen myself. And I relished the opportunity to show off how smart and how aware I was and it didn't matter what the collateral damage was.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

David Spira: And so when I read about "Hostilities", and it's why I asked you about it when, when you were on my show, Barry is like, I find it fascinating 'cause it is a brilliant game. I think it would make a great TV show. Nothing repulses me more than the idea of playing a game where I am going to use my abilities to intentionally harm people. I will definitely hurt people's feelings unintentionally, but like to do it intent- and like I don't even wanna do that, but like it'll happen for sure. But to go in knowing that I'm going to do this for fun and for sport. Like really isn't what I'm looking for in life at this point.

James McCusker: Reframing this under the idea of parlor games being a chance to be witty and creative. I'm wondering if hostilities in a way, hides behind that. Right? That I'm just being witty. I'm just clever.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: It's just a joke.

James McCusker: That's a way for me to step back with as you, so poetically are talking about this kind of blood bath, right?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

James McCusker: This kind of blood bath.

Barry Joseph: I'm so appreciative that as soon as I suggested the idea of playing it, you shared your feelings right away. I asked us to move from talking about the game from the outside to the inside. You welcomed us into that. As soon as you shared your reluctance. As soon as you shared your feelings about the game... about just the idea of playing it, we all got to do the same. And that really all I was looking for right now, because that's enough to give us a sense of how a game like this plays in the social dynamics of a group of friends. And thinking about what it might mean for Stephen Sondheim to often play this game, with his friends who he loved, who would play it with him back.

David Spira: I appreciate it. That was my hope, was like... the game is about vulnerability. It's a game about vulnerability and my hope was that I could substitute a gentler form of that. Rather than doing the brutal version of it that the game is kind of calling for.

James McCusker: Great.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I mean, to be fair, I don't think we could play a digital version of it anyways.

David Spira: I, yeah, I don't, I just don't wanna find out . But like imagine how, like, think about how powerful that mechanic is if the act of talking about it has allowed us to open up about vulnerability. Like we've talked about a few games already. We've played a few games and none of them have touched a nerve this way. They've all been interesting. They've all been fun. They've all been stimulating to talk about. But this is the first one where we're like opening up about stuff. That means something. There's a lot of power here. I just don't wanna touch it. 'Cause I think it will hurt.

Barry Joseph: David, I think as the game host tonight, I think I'm allowed to use my power to say, you have taught us that some games you only win by not playing, and because of you now, we've all won the "Hostilities" game.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: .We're all winners here.

David Spira: Hooray.

James McCusker: Fantastic.

Barry Joseph: Which leaves us with only one game left. To talk about the murder game. Have you all played the murder game?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah, I played at a conference.

James McCusker: I played it at a conference as well. I was at the same conference.

David Spira: I have not played this game. Not in real life. Not at a conference, but I did read about it in this really great book called "Matching Minds with Sondheim". I don't know, have you have y'all read this thing? It's really worth reading.

Barry Joseph: Oh, thank you for the plug David. Your cheque's in the mail. So, you three know the solution. The murder game has a solution because once you play it, you can't play it again. So, dear listeners, if you do not know the solution to the murder game and you do not want to know it, stop listening now. If you wanna experience it on your own for the rest of this episode, you will no longer be in a spoiler free zone. Stop listening now if you wanna play it yourself, because once you hear it, you will never be able to play it. Ever. Have you made your decision? Alright. We now pass into spoiler-land. To review the rules. Let's listen again to Richard Maltby Jr. Who can not only tell us how the game worked. But he can also tell us what happened when he told Sondheim that, even before they played the game, he had figured it out...

Richard Maltby Jr: He once invented a game that was a party game. It was a murder mystery game. Everybody was given some kind of, card of one sort. You were sent to various rooms. It had to be an apartment with a lot of different rooms. One person had a card that said he was the murderer. And if you had that card, you found somebody isolated, gave them that card and took their card and came back, right? The other person was then the dead person. And everybody came back. And then you laid out the cards and you had to figure out who did it. This is the plot of The Last of Sheila. They made it into the movie. He invited my wife and me to, go and play this game. And it was such a big deal. It was at Roddy McDowell's apartment. But I handed Steve a piece of paper at beginning because I had figured out what would've had to happen in order to make the puzzle work. Everyone was given a number and then a series of clues that made them go to some place, where they found a photograph. Then we brought that photograph back, and when everybody came back to the room, the murder has taken place. Everybody placed their cards with the photograph. Then, everybody looked at it and tried to figure out who the murderer was. Clearly, if I was given the card that had the number two and I went out, the photograph was something that had two things in it. If I had four, it was a candelabra that had four things, or, you know. So it was like every number corresponded to a photograph. One person would come back with a number that didn't correspond because he'd taken someone else's. And that would be the murderer. That's what you had to figure out. Before we played it. I tell him that it had to be that, because that's the only way the puzzle would work. I mean, it's kind of unsporting to do that. In fact, it's really a shitty ass thing to do. So everybody came back and I looked at everything and I knew who did it. Because I just knew what the device would be.

Barry Joseph: How did Stephen respond to that?

Richard Maltby Jr: He didn't hold it against me. He could easily have called me a shithead .

Barry Joseph: Before I invite you to jump in to respond, I want to first ask. When you throw a party game, how do you deal with someone being, as Richard put it, "a shithead"?

David Spira: I have a couple of ways that I manage party games and game nights. The first is that usually these games require a certain number of people, and if anyone bails on you, they screw everything up.

James McCusker: Oh, great.

David Spira: So, we put into all of our invitations. The words, , "remember flakiness is weakness of character". So upon doing that, when we started doing that, the amount of people who would cancel on us plummeted. So we do that. The second thing is, I think you kind of have to manage this in the invitation list. Once you have invited somebody who doesn't wanna be there or who is going to cause a problem, there's not a lot that you can do. And my experience is, usually the partner of somebody like, the new partner of a good friend who shows up and like, you know, is too cool for the game, doesn't wanna play. So we're really careful about that. Depending upon how sensitive the game is to like one person making a mess of things. I, I believe very firmly that have to craft the time you're going to have in a game like this in the invitation list. And then afterwards, once everyone's there reminding people of the spirit of the game, before sending people off to it. Those are the ways that I have managed that is like, make sure you have the right number of people. Make sure that you have invited the right people. And then remind people how this ought to be played.

James McCusker: Barry, your book gets into this. The idea that if couples would come to a party at Sondheim's, when it was time for a game, some partners would leave.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Hmm

James McCusker: They would just kind of break away. So that's interesting. Baking it into the invitation. To do some type of control since you're constructing so much for the evening. That's a great idea.

Barry Joseph: Alright. Who wants to respond in any way that you want? What do you think about the murder game?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Oh boy. I know. Everybody's like, Hmm. What do you say about this one? So this is a proto version... of a kind of game. That's not uncommon now, right? I don't know. David, tell me what you think about this. This feels like an element that would be part of an escape room or an immersive theater. Interactive, right? Doesn't it feel like part of something that would be embedded in a larger game?

David Spira: It's interesting because what you're describing right now is sort of where my mind is going, which is that it's a puzzle that is framed as a game. That's what I'm thinking of it as.

James McCusker: Very good.

David Spira: You're telling people you're playing a game, but what you've actually been presented with is a puzzle. There's something very interesting about that. This is something that all of the games that we have talked about right now, I've thought that they were really clever game designs. This I think is an interesting puzzle design. I don't necessarily like, and I guess puzzles are a subset of game..

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes.

David Spira: I just think the expectations of it are not necessarily like if you were going to tell people we're gonna go and we're gonna do a murder mystery night, and we're gonna play "Mafia" and then we're gonna play "The Murder Game".

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: You know, when you go and play "Mafia", everyone is playing a game. When you play "The Murder Game", you are solving a puzzle. But your expectations have been sent in a different direction. Which I just find really fascinating.

Barry Joseph: So, let me ask from a designer perspective. What role does the game component play in "The Murder Game" before what's presented on the table as a puzzle is being asked to be solved? Why do that? Why would someone ask people to spend minutes a half hour doing that before presenting the puzzle? What impact does that have on the people playing?

David Spira: I think it's setting and it's staging. It is putting people into a particular mindset,. And it is also, I think, a form of misdirection.

James McCusker: It is.

Barry Joseph: Which Sondheim loved in his puzzle design. That's what his cryptics were all about.

James McCusker: That's exactly what it is. If I'm going into play a murder game, I'm not looking for patterns of numbers. I'm not seeing that you got envelope three. She got envelope five.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right. Right.

James McCusker: So this idea that I have to be thinking completely different instead of all excited 'cause there's gonna be a murder and I have to figure out who done it.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

James McCusker: Is part of that misdirection.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah. Yeah. Murder games are typically games of social deduction, with some element of evidence. So, everybody usually has a piece of evidence and you sort of explore the evidence and wait to see where people screwed it up, right? Or where they're able to cover it. It's kind of interesting in some ways because that kind of a game seems like it would play right into the kind of things that Sondheim liked to build, right? I would say that Sondheim's designs often have an element of power imbalance. Because a solid murder mystery is a game in which everybody has an equal ability to participate and win or lose. But, Sondheim likes to build these top down social games. He's an ace human hacker, no doubt about it. I can imagine, especially considering his social status that everybody would just like be giggling and loving it and all sorts of confused theater emotions, as they played these games. But there's no doubt about it, Sondheim is in charge. And he wants to stay in charge. And he never gives up that power in any of his designs. And this is a situation where he could have created an even power structure throughout a standard type of murder mystery. But instead, he created a very clear, top-down puzzle structure, where either you're right or you're wrong, and he decides who it is. You know what I mean?

David Spira: Uh, this is something I've been thinking about a lot because of something that someone said at a conference that I was at was like, you know, there's a lot of experiences where you have agency but you have no relevance. And when I think about "The Murder Game"...

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: You have agency insofar as you can figure out the pattern or not. But you have no relevance in the game at all.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

David Spira: You are either identifying the pattern or you are not. But you are not really changing outcomes.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right, right, right. It's on rails.

James McCusker: And I love how the murderer is also trapped within the game as well. You would think that because I'm the murderer. I commit the murder and then I'm kind of done for the evening.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right.

James McCusker: I can go to the bar and instead you have to figure out how you know it's me and how I know it's me.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yeah.

James McCusker: I love that level of it.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Right.

Barry Joseph: I think you said, Kellian, this is somewhat of a game on rails, which is to say, right, as David was saying that, that it's kind of preset and people are just discovering the story. But the murderer could be caught or not caught. That is one option at the end. The rest I agree, is true. About think about the game, I think what he was trying to fix was that in the traditional murder games, everyone who was killed has nothing to do after they're killed. And in fact the murderer can't do anything except deflect attention. In this one the murderer now actually gets figure something out. And all all of the people who were killed killed also get to be part of that process as well. So I'm not disagreeing with what you said. I think it's very interesting to think about how Sondheim plays with power and is controlling the narrative.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: also

Barry Joseph: At the same time it's also one I find to be very inclusive It's designed to make sure engagement is maximized. I've noticed looking around that our bowls of pretzels and Halloween candy are running low. So, before you all go home and reflect on what it was like to play these games tonight. I'd love for us to finish by hearing from one person who was reflecting back on what he saw from Sondheim's Game designs, specifically how Sondheim approached them with a puzzler's mind. And what that can tell us about his musicals. We'll hear now from my interview with Stephen Schiff, who in the early 1990s went to Stephen Sondheim's home to interview him.

His work is so related to puzzles. Not so related to the kind of game where you roll dice and move a piece along, you know, and make that kind of progress, but related to the kinds of games that he played and staged, which were riddles and puzzles and things. You have to figure this out and then you're gonna find the thing there. And if you don't recognize that it's a thing that relates to this, then you've missed, you've missed it, but it's a process of cerebration that goes on. And one where you have to appreciate connections between things. So that's all puzzles and it's very, very, very related to his art as far as I'm concerned. A lot of what happens in his work is not dissimilar to, you know, what happens in "Hostilities", or a similar game. What Sondheim was always doing was also doing what any great artist tries to do, which is create feeling, create emotion, create a human response, and one that's recognizable. And his approach to it was the approach of a puzzler. Of someone who is saying, how can I make one plus one equal three? How can I make these things go together in such a way that it will produce almost, you know, scientifically, almost mathematically, emotion. What you see in Sondheim's work is not just emotion gushing out onto from some stream. You know, it's math. It's math that creates emotion. It's a puzzler's approach to having an effect that is beyond the effect of pure cerebration. But it's what someone, who has that cerebral gift that he had might bring, in his bag of tricks. To create feeling, relationships, emotion, that vividty of, human behavior on a stage.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I think it was interesting exactly what I was sort of saying before, right? Like, here's somebody who is an ace human hacker and he is looking to, elicit emotion from people. And he's got a couple of different arrows in his quiver. But when he's using his games arrow it is very directed. Like you can see what he's trying, trying to do, right? And he's good at it, right? He is getting the responses that he wants from people. I mean, these are very, very social interactions, all of them.

James McCusker: I've gotta think about that interesting idea of mathematics as well, right? This one plus one equals three. How all these numbers, this planning, these patterns, add up to this emotional punch. Whether it be "Hostilities" or something else.

David Spira: I mean, the mathematical thing that you're referring to, James. Games are a gestalt or this idea that they are more than the sum of their parts. And I think that that's what is being discussed here. And I think his games are that. Good games always are that if you were to break down the individual pieces of a game and interact with them in a vacuum, they almost always suck. They're not worth engaging with. It's the way that they come together

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes.

David Spira: It starts to build into something. It's sort of like, you know. Some pipes and some wires and some wood aren't a house. So, if you take a house and break it down into a pile of all of its pieces, it's, you know, I mean you can sell it those pieces for something, but you can't sell it for the value of a house. And you can't use it as a house. So, like, I think that that is very, very true. And I also think as we reflect on the breadth of the games he was making it's really impressive. 'Cause he was doing it in an era where that, I don't think, was especially common. Like, yes, people would make up little party games and stuff, but not necessarily as deliberately and even a lot of the board games that were published in his time didn't hold up to the test of time. So, like, these days we have game design programs at universities. We have education programs that are built around games. And, you know, represented by like half the people on this podcast. We have all of these escape rooms and immersive games that have emerged and like people are really experimenting with this stuff in ways that they never were in his era. And to hear the way he's messing around with murder mystery, with negative emotions, with positive emotions, with intrigue. He's playing around with different types of things. And if he were a professional game designer, he would have been spending more and more time iterating on each of those until they could become a refined product that he could sell. And instead he was just doing this for fun and entertaining his friends, and definitely entertaining himself. I mean that's my big takeaway, is that he's making games for people to play and he's making games to watch people build themselves up or unravel in front of him.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: Thank you all so much for coming to my game party tonight. It was so wonderful to have you. Please have a safe trip home. The microphone is now following each of you on your separate roots. What will we hear as you reflect back on your night as you're traveling home with your party visiting companions. David, what do we hear as you're traveling through the subways of New York City?

David Spira: You hear me going and calling my wife. Cause you know, we already established she and the razor blade costume didn't make it out this evening. But yeah, I, played some really interesting games tonight. A couple of them weren't to my taste. But, you know, I'd rather play an interesting game that I don't like, than a game that's fine and evokes no emotion.

Barry Joseph: The ghost microphone is now floating over to where James is traveling. What does it hear James saying?

James McCusker: I am thinking about how wonderful it is to be around clever people. And it makes me feel clever. I'm thinking about how much I learned about game design. And I am thankful that someone pulled the plug on hostilities. And I'll be sending them a box of chocolates when I get back to my beautiful Park Avenue apartment.

Barry Joseph: The ghost microphone is now floating into Kellian's car. And what do we hear her saying?

Kellian Adams Pletcher: I'm sitting talking to my husband. Oh my God, I can't believe I had the same costume as Barry. That's ridiculous. I mean, I thought I was being so clever. I thought nobody else would have that. Geez, I hope nobody took any pictures of that. Also, seriously, I can't believe that you were able to solve that puzzle before the rest of us were. Would you give the rest of us a chance for just one moment? I mean, I could have gotten it if you given me a second.

Barry Joseph: And for one moment of synchronicity, all three of you suddenly feel at the same time, a deep sense of being appreciated, of someone who is so thankful that you spent time with him playing and exploring the works of Stephen Sondheim. And thank you, dear listeners, for joining us as well for "Matching Minds with Sondheim", the podcast. If you can't wait for the next episode to drop, then, well please pick up a copy of my book or hit us up on the socials. Facebook and Instagram. Please comment and like the podcast on whatever platform you use. It helps us out immensely. I would also like to thank everyone who contributed behind the scenes to this episode. 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 in Merrily We Roll Along.

And please welcome our new line producer, Dennis Caouki.

Until next time, remember, oh, wait a second. You've all been here before with me on a podcast. I welcome you to join me if you want. remember, someone is on your side, especially when Matching Minds with Sondheim.

David Spira: observe my collection!

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Of course.

David Spira: Of fine and wonderful things. And look for the thing that is not fine and wonderful.

James McCusker: Let me hide the thimble amongst my butterfly collection in the den. Yes.

Kellian Adams Pletcher: Yes. Yeah.