Barry Joseph: Welcome back to Matching Minds with Sondheim and Happy New Year. It's been a bit. This is Barry Joseph, and I'm excited to return with you after 20 consecutive back-to-back weeks of launching new episodes of this series. This started in August of 2025 and I didn't miss a Tuesday all the way through December.

Now that I've hit that goal, I think it's time to relax a bit. My new schedule will be something like maybe two a month. We'll see.

Each week you'll have to ask yourself, is there gonna be another new episode waiting for me? And I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised when it does. This episode is not technically a repodcast. Although it kind of is, but it's not. Donald Feltham who had me on his show last fall had me come back again and this time he wanted just to chat with me about songs and Stephen Sondheim's oeuvre, many well known, some you probably never even heard of, that help us understand his connection with puzzles in games in a whole new way.

As well as understand those songs as well. Except he doesn't have a podcast, he has a streaming show. To listen to his productions, all you have to do is go to his website and hit play. You cannot listen to it on RSS Feed, on a podcaster, which means in part he can play the entire song.

I'm not set up to do that. So if you want to hear all of the songs that we're gonna be discussing, stop listening now and just go right to Donald's website, which you can find in the show notes, but if you wanna just get a sense of those songs, we have little teasers included here.

As Donald and I walk through some of the most interesting puzzle and game-related songs of Steven, of Steven Sondheim. So enjoy and stay tuned for the next episode, which is gonna go back to our traditional format where I'll be bringing in clips from my interviews, from my book, and experts to discuss those clips with me. And the topic this time will be Stephen Sondheim and cryptic crosswords. I'm scared. Be scared for me.

This topic terrifies me, but I think I can do it. Alright, enjoy this episode and then I'll see you then. Bye-bye.

Donald Feltham: Welcome to the Broadway Radio Show. I am Donald Feltham and I'm very happy to welcome back Barry Joseph, author of one of my favorite books of 2025.

Barry Joseph: Donald, thank you.

Donald Feltham: And it's a definite must-buy for any theater or Stephen Sondheim fan. It's called Matching Minds with Sondheim: the Puzzles and Games of the Broadway legend.

Barry Joseph: Woo.

Donald Feltham: And it's available wherever you buy books. Barry is here with a collection of Stephen Sondheim songs that are somewhat of a musical companion piece to the book. And they're also some of your favorites, I believe. So you tell me where we're gonna get started?

Barry Joseph: Donald, I'm so excited to be back. Last time when we spoke, we backgrounded his music. Now we get to foreground it. So this is really fun to talk about his songs and what we should be thinking about while we listen to them. Where Sondheim was playing with puzzles and games in the construction of the lyrics, or sometimes even the narrative in the song itself.

Donald Feltham: Right. Right.

Barry Joseph: So why don't we start with the oldest song we're listen to today? This is from 1960, and actually it was never produced. It was from a playful, parody filled number that was designed to be sung by children on a playground. Using count outs and name spouse object songs as musical games and lyrical puzzles.

So now imagine this, it's 1960 and there was a TV show. It was called The Fabulous Fifties, and it was gonna look back at the decade with different numbers. And "10 years old" is a song that Stephen Sondheim designed for it. Something very whimsical. A way to look back at the past decade. It was never recorded. It was unproduced, but he then recorded his own version of it. And I believe that's what we're gonna listen to in a few minutes. Now, what we need to think about when we listen to it is that we've all heard historical review songs before, like Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" and REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Fine."

Those are typical list songs, and Sondheim could have just done that, but that's not what he did. Instead, Sondheim challenged himself by adding the additional complexity of referencing the historical events within parodies of children's play songs. That is, the children would be singing songs with lyrics and music that reflect the game they're playing.

So, let me give you some examples. You'll hear in the song like a nursery rhyme song where it's changed. So for example, "with a nick-nack paddy whack who can go to bed when the future lies ahead". And I imagine some of the irony was you're listening to a child say things at a little bit above their age, right?

And some of the songs are like game songs like Count Outs. "A: Angry Young Men", "B: Brigitte Bardot", and like a name spouse, location, object song. Like K: my name is "Kukla, my husband's name is Kefauver." That was a senator. "We come from Korea and we use credit cards". But the credit cards are with K's right? I don't know how you're supposed to hear that when you're listening to the song. So as you're listening to the song, notice all the ways that Sondheim both creatively revisited things from the 1950s and found ways to tell those stories through parodying children's songs.

Donald Feltham: So we're gonna listen to it right now. It's uh, from a collection called Sondheim Sings and it is Stephen Sondheim himself singing a song called 10 Years Old.

Stephen Sondheim: 10 years old. 10 years old. You're not nearly 10 years old. with a nick-nack paddy-wack. Meeny-miny-mo. Who knew you ten years ago? 10 years old. 10 years old. So I'm under 10 years old with a nick-nack univac Marilyn Monroe, who knew them 10 years ago. Who had heard of Salk Vaccine? Dexadrine? Mr. Clean? Who had heard of Fulton Sheen, or My Fair Lady? I had never actually, had never heard that song before. I really hadn't. And it, and it's almost like a word game puzzle, in song. It's so much fun to listen to. It's very clever. And you don't know where it's going, which is what I learned about it.

Barry Joseph: That's right. And he's playing with himself, right? He's challenging himself.

And again, a television medium, even if it was ever recorded for the air, there's no way you can catch half of it without pausing and rewinding.

Donald Feltham: Right, exactly. So what is next that we should be listening to?

Barry Joseph: Well, let's stay in the 1960s and let's move to 1966 and stay with Television. Evening Primrose was a 1966 made for TV musical with a book by James Goldman, written with Sondheim for the television anthology series ABC Stage 67. We're gonna look at one of its songs, which is When? question mark at the end. When? which is a romantic duet between Anthony Perkins character Charles and Charmaine Carr's Ella.

However, and here's the twist. The two are at a party. And their forbidden love must remain hidden. The song is a duet that only the audience can hear as each privately declares their love for the other. In the solitude of their own mind. Meanwhile, the lyrics are intercut with spoken dialogue between Charles and a table of characters playing bridge, which is meticulously structured. So that words from the game transition into the private love song lyrics, it's all more complicated because in real life, the actors did not even actually know the rules of bridge. Now, what I want you to listen to in the song is how Sondheim includes terms from the game, such as conventions for the bidding stage to determine the trump suit, like pass in one heart. And how, for example, like after Charles says "pass" in the game, the word spills into his private love song repeated and extended into, "I pass the hours planning things to teach you."

When Charles establishes the trump suit with "one heart", the verse soon blossoms into "one heart is beating wildly". It's a dense and delectable confection.

Donald Feltham: So let's listen to it now from Evening Primrose. Here is "When?"

Charles: I pass, I pass. I pass the hours planning things to teach you.

Ella: I pass the hours planning ways to reach you.

Charles: One heart. One heart. One heart is beating quietly. Can she hear it?

Ella: One heart is beating quietly. Charles is near it!!

Charles: When we will be alone together? When Can we be be alone together. When can I once again touch your cheek? When can I once again touch your cheek? When? When?

Donald Feltham: And we heard "When?" from Evening Primrose, and I had chosen because barry, let me pick which version I picked. And I picked the version from Sondheim At The Movies, Songs From The Screen featuring Liz Callaway and Gary Beach. Nothing is bad when you have Liz Callaway singing .

Barry Joseph: And if you wanna listen to the original, you can go to YouTube and watch the entire episode of Evening Primrose.

Donald Feltham: So what is next on your list?

Barry Joseph: Let's move into the seventies and let's check out "Poems" from Pacific Overture. In 1976, this show featured a duet called "Poems" between the characters, Kayama Yezaman forgive me if I got his name wrong. And Jan Manjiro, which functions as a game-like competition. Kayama begins the show as a samurai and minor bureaucrat. Initially a traditionalist, he becomes increasingly westernized. Meanwhile, Manjiro is a shipwrecked Japanese fisherman who rescued by an American whaling ship lives in the West for many years before returning to Japan.

In this song, "Poems" the two, compare Japanese and Western poetry symbolizing the meeting of two cultures. Listen now as they play a type of game in which they playfully challenge each other, one providing stanza and the next transforming it. Building a poem together. At each stage, prompting the other with "your turn". Donald, "your turn".

Donald Feltham: Yes, and we're gonna hear from the original 1976 Broadway cast recording. I say Isao Sato and Sab Shimono, with "Poems" from Pacific Overtures.

Kayama: Rain glistening On the silver birch, Like my lady's tears. Your turn..

Manjiro: Rain. Gathering. Winding into streams. Like the roads to Boston. Your turn.

Kayama: Haze hovering, Like the whisper of the silk, As my lady kneels. Your turn.

Manjiro: Haze glittering. Like an echo of the lamps... in the streets of Boston. Your turn.

Donald Feltham: Well, before we continue, I want to check in with you to find out how things have been going since the book's release. I know you've been really, really busy and the book is, as I said at the beginning, a must read, must purchase for anybody who's a theater lover or a Sondheim fan. After I did the interview with you back in November, I started talking it up to friends.

And at first they were puzzled. They were like, wait, wait, explain to me again, what's this book about? And I would tell them, and they would, their eyes would light up and they'd go, that sounds really fascinating. And I said, it's totally eyeopening. I said, you, you have never seen this side of Sondheim before. And I said, plus the fact that it's just fun because you, if you're interested at all in puzzles or games, which almost everybody is, your book delves into all the different aspects of that part of his life. I know you've done a lot of events, promoting the book, and you've had I'm sure a lot of feedback. How's that been?

Barry Joseph: Well, Donald, this is the best feedback I've received so far. It was just two days ago, actually. It was yesterday. I I was speaking in Western New Jersey right outside Philadelphia. And during the Q and A, someone said, "being a Sondheim fan, this explains a lot."

Donald Feltham: I totally agree. I totally agree. It really does. It really does. And the response from, the critics and stuff, I'm sure has been fantastic. And people are loving reading the book.

Barry Joseph: It's been very rewarding. My first book came out in 2018. Seltzertopia. it's all about seltzer water. And this summer it came out with its second printing that took about eight years Matching Minds with Sondheim took eight days before I was told by my publisher we're going into a second printing.

Donald Feltham: Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's fantastic!

Barry Joseph: Thank you. And listen, I love to hear what you know, critics have to say in the press, but nothing is more rewarding than knowing that fans are finding the book and discovering it and sharing it with their friends and driving sales. Which of course I enjoy hearing about 'cause the financial side. But what I really care about is spreading this message as it, that one Sondheim fan said, having a Sondheim explained to them in a new way and being able to approach his work with a new set of eyes and a new lens.

Donald Feltham: Right! What I loved about the book is that it provides a whole new dimension to someone who we all have loved and admired throughout the years, but now we see a whole different side of him. And that makes him that much more human and that much more someone we feel like we know better. So again, thank you for the book and congratulations. I was thrilled once I finished reading it, it's just amazing.

Barry Joseph: Thank you, Donald. Part of what's been so fun about giving my talks in public is not only getting to meet people, who have been following me on social media or discovering the book for the first time, but actually meeting in person, so many people I relied on for the book.

Donald Feltham: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: I did most of my interviews over Zoom from my home in New York City talking to people all over the country, and I am now having opportunities to bring some of those people up on the stage as a surprise guest or, as this happened just recently, someone shows up during the book signing or the Q and A, and I'm finding out for the first time that this is someone I've known for two years online. And in fact, when I just spoke recently, uh, there was Will Shortz right there in the audience. And I'm showing something that he gave me that I put in the book. Which is a Cryptic crossword that Stephen Sondheim had completed in the 1960s and then gifted to Will Shortz. There it is up on the screen and there's Will Shortz out in the audience up there looking at it. It kind of, you know, blows my mind.

Donald Feltham: Well, I again, there will be a link here on the radio show website so you can get to Barry's, page for the book. And you can purchase the book. I strongly recommend it. And it's one of those books you need to have a physical copy. I don't think a, a download of the book is really. It feels like a physical book to me. It just feels like you need to have a physical copy of the book, especially for the all the puzzles and the games and stuff.

It just works better to me to have it in my hands for some reason. Anyway, let's get back to this wonderful collection of sometimes songs that are like I said, a companion piece to the book, Matching Minds with Sondheim.

Barry Joseph: All right, so let's jump into the 1980s and let's do two songs from Into the Woods. Let's start with ""It Takes Two". And in fact, what I wanna do is just kinda read four lines from "It Takes two". The first line is "we want four, we had none". And then it continues with, "we've got three. We need one. It takes two". Now, each of these phrases stands on its own and has its own meaning. The couple in our show were asked to find four objects of which they had none at the start. Now they hold three with only one left to find. And in order to meet their goal, they finally realize they need to do it as a team. In the context of the show, it makes perfect sense. But if you look past the literal meaning of the words, as the line stacked together like boxes, accounting puzzle emerges, which when sung, solves and reveals itself coming together in a beautiful moment of clarity. Reaffirming the power of collaboration. Five quantities in a row, like spaces in a board game, each labeled from four down to zero, with two characters like playing pieces, each starting at opposite ends, heading together and meeting at last in the center. So listen to me again, repeat the words, which you'll hear in a few moments. But imagine two characters coming together. "We want four. We had none. We've got three. We need one. It takes two."

Baker and Baker's Wife: We've changed. We're strangers. I'm meeting you In the Woods. Who minds? What dangers? I know we'll get passed the Woods! And once we're past, let's hope the changes last. Beyond Woods, beyond witches and slippers and hoods. Just the two of us. Beyond lies. Safe at home with our beautiful prize. Just a few of us. It takes trust. It takes just a bit more. And we're done. We want four. We had none. We've got three. We need one. It takes two.

Donald Feltham: So we just heard it takes two from the original 1987 Broadway cast recording of Into the Woods with Tony Award winner Joanna Gleason as the Baker's wife and Chip Zien as the Baker. And what is the other Into The Woods song that you want us to focus on?

Barry Joseph: The second song I wanna look at is "No More.". Now the entire structure of the first act of Into the Woods is a puzzle hunt with clearly defined goals and constraints as defined by the Witch to the Baker and his Wife. While this format is not uncommon in fairytales, it was also a standard convention in the style of the 1980s computer-based puzzle games enjoyed by Stephen Sondheim, which led him to explore turning the musical into a CD-ROM game in the early nineties.

Donald Feltham: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: So the Baker in this moment in the song, the Baker eventually turns against the show's puzzle structure as we hear in the song "No More".. And he lists all the things he wants to run from including, listen for these, "no more riddles, no more quests."

Donald Feltham: So we are gonna now hear, we're actually gonna hear from the 2022 Broadway revival of the show, and we'll hear the Baker play by Brian d'Arcy James, basically reacting to the puzzle master, the old man David Patrick Kelly, uh, who's sort of narrating the show and turns into a character in the show doing "No More".

Baker: No more riddles. No more jests. No more curses you can't undo left by fathers you never knew. No more quests. No more feelings. Time to shut the door. Just no more.

Donald Feltham: I love the part in your book where you do delve into the fact that they were hoping to turn Into the Woods into some sort of video game or video something.

Barry Joseph: An educational CD-ROM is what I've..

Donald Feltham: Yeah, they actually recorded songs for it. You can actually hear those songs because those songs are, uh, on, I think the, like the remastered CD version of the show has those X bonus tracks.

Barry Joseph: But with no context.

Donald Feltham: But no context.

Barry Joseph: You wouldn't know that's why they were recorded or what they were for. In fact, yeah, the people who were recording it at the time, pretty much when they were reported in interviews afterwards, they didn't know what they were doing there. They didn't know why, except for there was something called new technology called a CD-ROM, or maybe it was for a game, but beyond that, they didn't know.

Donald Feltham: So what is next? I think I know where we're going, but what do you have up in store for us?

Barry Joseph: It's time for us to go to Road Show or depending on which recording you're using, it might be a different title, but the song we wanna hear is "the Game".

Donald Feltham: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: So Road Show has a song title, "the Game" in which the two brothers, Addison and Wilson are working a gold claim up in the Klondike. When to his brother's horror, Wilson decides to gamble the claim in a round of poker. "The only thing that matters is the Game", Wilson argues. It was about more than just winning the money. It was about putting all you are into the pot. So in a moment, we're gonna listen in the song, how poker becomes a metaphor for how to live life always on the edge. But first I wanna mention in a later song in the show, "Get out / Go". Wilson tells his brother after their latest calamity that it was always bound to fall apart that quote, "whatever the game, this was always our road" end quote. Games in the context of the show are about how to approach life. About taking the big risks, even if they come at the cost of others and riding them as far as one can. And then we may eventually crash. Picking yourself back up and looking for the next game to play.

Donald Feltham: So from the 2008 recording of Road Show.. We're actually gonna use the roadshow recording, not the bounce recording, but we are gonna hear the game with Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani in the cast.

Wilson Mizner: The whole thing's, nothing more than just a game and Addie, what I'm good at is the game. They said, come on in sucker. Now they're sorry that I came. I tell you kid, there's nothing like the game. Better than girls, better than booze. Beating Ace High with a pair of twos better than snow drifts in your shoes. Even if now and then you lose.

Addison Mizner: Exactly.

Donald Feltham: Uh, what is next? I think you have some more games for us, right?

Barry Joseph: Yeah. So we're now entering what I would call the height of obscurity, not 'cause the show is obscure, but the songs are.

Donald Feltham: Mm-hmm.

Barry Joseph: We're gonna listen to something technically called "Game Secret number one", and then "Game Sequence Number 2". Although depending where you look, they have different names. Starting in 1992, first in London, then in New York City there was a Sondheim revue called Putting It Together. It eventually went to Broadway, but I think it got lost by then. So we're just gonna focus on those productions. Sondheim wrote two new parody songs for this Revue. Which in fact are also sung versions of his 1960s parlor games. Interestingly, they are not in his collection of annotated lyrics, which is why I call it the Height of obscurity, which should probably tell us something about what he felt about them. But first, before we talk about the songs themselves, I wanna talk about the covers, the posters. The posters for both productions in London and New York use a jigsaw, metaphor, in laying out the image. And it was starting with that production that Sondheim changed what his opening night gifts would be. Until then, he did something different for each show. Often connected to the show's theme, and this one had a poster theme of a jigsaw. So people that night received a jigsaw puzzle. Hand carved in wood from a very sophisticated company in Vermont called Stave Puzzles. Which they would recognize as soon as they put the pieces together. It was the poster of the show. But then to their surprise, they would find that there's some spaces cut out and it would be the initials of their name. So Donald, if you were in that production and you received an opening night gift from Sondheim, you would see D and F carved into it personalized just for you. And starting with that production in 1993 in New York, that is the gift he gave, I believe, for every show after that. Until after he passed away. And the New York City Revival of Company received their gift a few weeks in December after they'd opened, a few weeks after Sondheim had passed away. And so the fact that that show started with the Jigsaw poster, inspired him for decades to do these beautiful, devious, challenging, customized and personalized jigsaw puzzles.

Donald Feltham: As you talk about in the book these puzzles, people may think, well, a jigsaw puzzle isn't that difficult. But when you're dealing with a puzzle that has what's called negative space, meaning that there's holes in it on purpose, it's sort of hard. Plus the fact you can't necessarily tell what are the edge pieces and what are not the edge pieces, because they purposely cut some of the pieces with very flat edges, even though they're in the middle of the puzzle. And the fact, as the cast members soon discovered that the puzzles were all individually cut, so none of the pieces matched other puzzles. So even though you may have gotten the same puzzle image, your puzzle pieces were not the same as the puzzle pieces somebody else got. That's right. So they were not, not interchangeable.

Barry Joseph: So this was a gift just for you.

Donald Feltham: Yeah. It was a very, very personalized gift

Barry Joseph: in the songs we'll hear now Putting It Together places two couples at a dinner party in a New York City penthouse. At one point, the couples are bored and discuss what to do next. A list of games is suggested and each is struck down. In turn. Charades, Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue. These negotiations are performed in a parody of the refrain "what would we do without you" from Company transformed into "what would you all like to do?" Here, Sondheim is making fun of both his own songs as well as his interest in games. An additional character known as The Observer suggests, "how about whom in this room... everyone's played. I assume" he asks in song, "if each character had a gun with just one bullet, whom in the room would they boom"! This now leads to a parody of "The Gun Song" from Assassins when "The Gun Song" concludes. The new song to parody "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd. The Observer explains in song, they are now "onto round two". With the lyrics, instructing the players to pick a person, write their initials on a piece of paper, and then on the back of the paper, challenge them with an "unrepressed question", unrepressed and putting in quotes. This, in fact, is a loose version of a parlor game Sondheim played called "Hostilities". One that was known to end with players leaving in tears. Throughout his career, Sondheim wrote many parody and novelty songs that demonstrate his wit and brilliance. These two are not those. What they are instead is a humorous glimpse into Sondheim presenting on the stage what he enjoyed for decades in his personal life. So Donald, I like to imagine these songs were a private joke, shared more with himself than the audience to make himself chuckle. But now at last, we can all be in on the joke.

The Observer: How about whom in this room. Everyone's played, I assume?

Putting It Together Cast: No, I never have. Really?

The Observer: You know the one, if you had a gun and just one shot, remember now it's strictly in fun home. Whom in this room, would you... boom.

Putting It Together Cast: What is that?

The Observer: A game.

Julie Andrews: Oh, not another game.

Putting It Together Cast: Pick a person here and then write down the name, only the initials and everyone print. Mustn't give a hint.

Julie Andrews: Darling. What's the aim?

Putting It Together Cast: Okay, I've got a name.

The Observer: On the other side ask a question of same.

Putting It Together Cast: Seems a little tame..

The Observer: Only every question must carry a theme word.

Putting It Together Cast: Like.

The Observer: Oh, Marry. Too tame? What's the game? That's all there is to it.

Julie Andrews: Oh, fuck it. Let's do it.

Donald Feltham: So from "Putting It Together",, we just heard game sequence number one and game sequence number two, uh, which are a real treat. And I believe that we have one more song to hear, as we close out the show. Very appropriate song. And it's a song that you referenced, I think, multiple times in the book, for very good reasons. But why don't you tell us what, the final song is?

Barry Joseph: Thanks, Don. I think I would like to say I saved the best for last. Yeah. And if I said to a number of times, if I wrote the book a different way, it would be structured around this. In 1965, Sondheim had a friend, Phyllis Newman, whose new show had flopped outta town. "Don't be depressed." He told her backstage and then asked, "what can I do for you?" And she responded by saying, "you can throw me a party when I get back to New York and make it a game party." Then she asked, "invent a game", and so he did. He returned to New York and one night went into an 11 hour creative fugue not coming out until he'd finished designing the game. Now, Terry Gross interviewed Sondheim for her show Fresh Air in 2010, and when she asked him about the origin of the song, "Finishing the Hat", he said, that song came out of an incident in my life where I sat down to invent a game for a friend. He then described to her the hours he'd spent 45 years earlier designing this game, the Game, which was called "The Murder Game", and he called it Trancing out. And then noticing the shock he had of looking around 11 hours later and realizing that he was now back in the real world. And he wanted to capture that moment in a song. And in fact, in his book of collected lyrics, Heim elaborated on this story. He recalled the experience nearly a half century later. Donald, can I read you a few lines from him?

Donald Feltham: Sure.

Barry Joseph: He said, "I had left the planet for 11 hours. Completely absorbed in a world of instructions, gunshots, diagrams, and clues, calibrating every possibility of the player's movements and observations. No matter how trivial the goal may have been, the intensity of the concentration was the same as that, of writing a song and just as difficult and exhilarating. I've never had a better time making a hat". So when you listen now to Sunday's George Seurat sing on the stage about painting a hat into existence, you might also imagine Sondheim fondly recalling a time he designed a parlor game for his dear friend.

Donald Feltham: So here is Mandy Patinkin from the original Broadway cast recording of Sunday in the Park with George with "Finishing the Hat".

Mandy Patinkin: How the kind of woman to wait, not the kind you want find, waiting to return you to the night. Dizzy from the height. Coming from the hat. Studying the hat. Entering the world of the hat. Reaching through the world of the hat, like a window. Back to this one from that. Studying a face. Stepping back to look at a face. Leaves a little space in the way. Like a window.

Donald Feltham: Well that in concludes, Barry Joseph's list of Sondheim songs to go along with his book, Matching Minds with Sondheim: the Puzzles and Games of the Broadway legend. What is next for you, by the way? Anything that you can share at this point?

Barry Joseph: I just wanna keep taking this on the road. I have my podcast that's related to the book where people can hear not only the voices they hear in the book itself, but other experts I bring in to comment on what we're talking about, whether it's an escape room or the music of Stephen Sondheim. I'm continuing to take on the road my ability to speak and share stories like you just heard now with crowds in fun interactive ways, and also leading Sondheim style parlor game nights and teaching people how to make treasure hunts like Stephen Sondheim. And I'm hoping to break out of the boundaries of America and maybe get over to London. We'll see.

Donald Feltham: Oh, that'd be great. That'd be great. And I have a really quick funny story to tell you. The only people who have read the book will understand and you will understand. If you remember back in November when we recorded the show, uh. The night before the show began streaming, the Saturday night before I actually went to see a friend who, performs and one of his specialties is he performs as Sinatra. He was taking some requests and someone yelled out a particular song, and he started the song with, "it's a quarter to three. There's no one in the place, but you and me". And I leaned over. I leaned over to my friend who was with me and said, oh my God. This relates to the show, the radio show that goes up tomorrow.

Barry Joseph: That's right.

Donald Feltham: It's a very strange situation. I'm hearing Sinatra or someone who sounds like Sinatra singing those words, which is something that you have to read Barry's book to understand what I'm talking about.

Barry Joseph: And Don, I love that anecdote because it highlights the impact I wanna have for people. I want you to be able to experience Stephen Sondheim in a whole new way. I want you to see his, listen to his lyrics and his music in a new way. And when you think about who he was and who this brilliant man was to create such beautiful things that moved us all, it'll give you a whole new way to understand and appreciate him.

Donald Feltham: Barry, I really appreciate you taking the time to pull together this list. And bringing these songs to everyone's attention so that they can enjoy the songs as they're reading through the book. Again, get out there and purchase, Matching Minds with Sondheim. You will not be disappointed, as I have told multiple people. I don't care how much you think you know about Stephen Sondheim. This turns up a whole new perspective, that you will not have known about. So I highly recommend the book. So, congratulations, Barry.

Barry Joseph: Thank you down. Always a pleasure to spend time with you. And next episode we'll get, and next episode we'll get back into, and next episode we'll get back into something completely new, pulling out audio elements for my interviews with Steven Sondheim on the topic of cryptic crossword puzzles and bringing in a number of incredible experts to discuss those interviews and Stephen Sondheim's relationship with [gibberish]...