The January 1983 profile of Stephen Sondheim in Games magazine, including an original puzzle created by Sondheim based on his 1964 parlor game that inspired his script for the 1973 film The Last of Sheila and later his song Finishing the Hat in 1984’s Sunday in the Park with George.
Excerpt from the book Matching Minds with Sondheim:
The most extensive coverage of Sondheim’s interest in antique game boards came through a 1983 profile in Games magazine: “some hanging, some standing, games of skill and games of chance, puzzling games and boring games, games that belong in a penny arcade, and, most of all, games that belong in a museum — board games, primarily 19th-century board games.” Dick Schaap, the journalist, wrote that “the games are handsomely framed, magnificently presented,” and, according to Sondheim, chosen more for their style than their substance.
Walter Wick, the magazine’s photographer, took the opportunity to photograph, in isolation, many board games, sculptural puzzles, and more, featuring them within the article as a collection prized by Sondheim and to be admired by Games’ readers. Each earned a substantive caption, as if copy for a museum exhibit. One, for example, was for Jeu Fin de Siècle (End-of-the-Century Game), published in France around 1892 to teach children dates of important events in literature, chemistry, physics, medicine, and the beaux arts.
This collection of photos by Games magazine would become one of the best historical documentations of Sondheim’s collection since, just a few years later, many would be destroyed in a house fire.
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