SONDHEIM LUDOLOGICAL TIMELINE
The following is a timeline of the key milestones in Stephen Sondheim’s life in relation to games and puzzles.
1930, March 22: Game on.
1941: Learns to play Anagrams at the Hammersteins’ (the “genteel” version).
1940s: Designs first board game and submits to publisher, who rejects it. (Thirteen years later, a game called Park and Shop was published by Milton-Bradley; Sondheim claimed they stole his idea.)
1950s (early): Bridgehampton early variation of what would later become Sondheim’s Murder Game.
1950s: Stardom Rummy, his first card game and first tabletop game, codeveloped with John Springer. A rummy-style card game in which players meld casts of movies.
1953: Stardom or Camp, a board game, about sleeping with Hollywood starlets.
1953: First entry in his board game collection, received as a present, used to decorate his wall: the New Game of the Jew.
1950s (mid): Learns from Leonard Bernstein how to play cutthroat Anagrams.
1958–1960: Estimated date range for The Game of Hal Prince (aka, Producer) board game. This estimate is based on the window between when the two met on the set of West Side Story (1957), 1960 being the last year all seven of the in-game’s drama critics worked at the same time, and the game being produced for Prince’s birthday (January 30, which rules out 1957). In addition, the Gossip cards often refer to outrageous shenanigans involving rival in-game producers “Prince and Griffith” (e.g., “You’ve been banging someone” in their office to steal their investors’ list), placing Hal Prince within the narrative of the game alongside Robert E. Griffith, his first partner, who died in 1961.
1958: Leonard Bernstein’s fortieth-birthday treasure hunt in Connecticut designed by Sondheim. “All the grownups were outside,” Alexander Bernstein told the author, “dashing around the dock, screaming with laughter.”
1958: Sondheim made his first attempt at psychotherapy, possibly inspiring the undated board game Analysis, in which the pieces were miniature hand- upholstered couches.
1960, June 30: Appears on TV game show Play Your Hunch.
1964, June 22: Appears on TV game show Get the Message with Robert Horton against Lauren Bacall and Carol Lawrence (who created the role of Maria on Broadway in West Side Story).
1964, August 31: Appears on TV game show Get the Message with Chester Morris against Betty White and the returning Carol Lawrence.
1965 (spring): The Murder Game, Sondheim’s final variation, designed and run for the first time.
1966, November 1: Appears on TV game show Match Game with Jill Goodson, Lynne Rayburn, Gloria Steinem, Phyllis Newman, and Mark Goodson (all- celebrity panel celebrating thousandth episode).
1966, December 25: Appears on TV game show Password with Lee Remick. (Yes, there are others, but all that mattered was Remick).
1968, April 8: New York magazine cryptic puzzle—Puzzle #1 (solution: April 22,
1968).
1968, April 15: New York cryptic puzzle—Dedicated Dodecahedron (solution: April 29, 1968).
1968, April 22: New York cryptic puzzle—3 Downs (solution: May 6, 1968).
1968, April 29: New York cryptic puzzle—One Shy (solution: May 13, 1968).
1968, May 6: New York cryptic puzzle—Diametricode (errata and solution May 20, 1968).
1968, May 13: New York cryptic puzzle—Woodbabes (solution: May 27, 1968).
1968, May 20: New York cryptic puzzle—Misprints (solution: June 3, 1968).
1968, June 3: New York cryptic puzzle—Vicious Circles (solution: June 17, 1968).
1968, June 17: New York cryptic puzzle—Chop Logic (solution: July 8, 1968).
1968, June 24: New York cryptic puzzle—News Clippings (solution: July 15, 1968).
1968, July 1: New York cryptic puzzle—Code Format (errata and solution: July 22, 1968).
1968, July 8: New York cryptic puzzle—Sixes and Sevens (solution: July 29, 1968).
1968, July 15: New York cryptic puzzle—A (K)night at the Philharmonic (solution: August 5, 1968).
1968, July 29: New York cryptic puzzle—Clicks . . . (solution: August 19, 1968).
1968, August 5: New York cryptic puzzle—Assemblage Line (solution: August 26, 1968).
1968, August 19: New York cryptic puzzle—Printer’s Devilry (errata and solution: September 9, 1968).
1968, August 25: The Great Conductor Hunt for Leonard Bernstein’s fiftieth birthday (a board game in three movements: Diploma, Itinerary, Podium).
1968, September 9: New York cryptic puzzle—Playfair Square (solution: September 30, 1968).
1968, September 16: New York cryptic puzzle—Word Games (solution: October 7, 1968).
1968, September 23: New York cryptic puzzle—1 Across (solution: October 14, 1968).
1968, September 30: New York cryptic puzzle—Alphabetical Inserts (solution: October 21, 1968).
1968, October 7: New York cryptic puzzle—New Directions (solution: October 28, 1968).
1968, October 14: New York cryptic puzzle—Winners First (solution: November 4, 1968).
1968, October 21: New York cryptic puzzle—Intermediaries (solution: November 11, 1968).
1968, October 28: New York cryptic puzzle—Head-Hunting (solution: November 18, 1968).
1968, October 31: The Halloween treasure hunt, designed with Anthony Perkins.
1968, November 4: New York cryptic puzzle—Safe-Cracking (solution: November 25, 1968).
1968, November 11: New York cryptic puzzle—Murder Mystery (solution: December 2, 1968).
1968, November 18: New York cryptic puzzle—That Is to Say . . . (solution: December 9, 1968).
1968, November 25: New York cryptic puzzle—Interlocks (errata December 9, 1968; solution December 23, 1968).
1968, December 2: New York cryptic puzzle—Bookworm (solution: December 23, 1968).
1968, December 9: New York cryptic puzzle—Treasure Hunt (solution: January 6, 1969).
1968, December 16: New York cryptic puzzle—Perspectives (solution: January 27, 1969).
1968, December 23: New York cryptic puzzle—Christmas Competition (solution: January 27, 1969).
1969, January 6: New York cryptic puzzle—Un-American (solution: February 17, 1969). (Note: the only cryptic not republished in the printed collection).
1969, January 27: New York cryptic puzzle—Vicious Circles II (solution: February 17, 1969).
1969, February 17: New York cryptic puzzle—Faces (solution: March 10, 1969).
1969, March 10: New York cryptic puzzle—Battleships (solution: March 31, 1969).
1969, March 31: New York cryptic puzzle—Alphabet Soup (solution: April 21, 1969).
1969, April 21: New York cryptic puzzle—Chessman (solution: May 12, 1969). 1969, May 12: New York cryptic puzzle—Code I (errata and solution: June 2, 1969).
1969, June 2: New York cryptic puzzle—Poker Game (solution: June 23, 1969).
1969, June 23: New York cryptic puzzle—Critical Birds (solution: July 14, 1969).
1969, July 14: New York cryptic puzzle—Sixes and Sevens II (solution: August 4, 1969).
1973, June: Premiere of the film The Last of Sheila. Includes game and puzzle mechanics from his earlier work.
1973, September: Shubert Theater, A Little Night Music Treasure Hunt.
1983, January: Games magazine runs Sondheim profile, “You Can Walk Out of This Magazine Humming His Games.” Includes Sondheim’s puzzle adaptation of The Murder Game.
1984: The fax machine treasure hunt.
1987, November: Into the Woods opening night puzzle beans.
1989: Sondheim thanked in credits for play testing 3 in Three, a meta-puzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson.
1993, March: First opening night gift of a personalized Stave jigsaw puzzle, for the Off-Broadway production of Putting It Together.
1995, May 15: Edna St. Vincent Millay Treasure Hunt.
~1996: Murder in Room 1213, a murder mystery party where one of the guests has killed their psychiatrist, developed in connection with Sondheim’s play (with George Furth) on the same theme, Getting Away with Murder.
2009, July 29: Last recorded Sondheim games night. Last recorded instance of The Murder Game. The Dakota Treasure Hunt.
2011, October 3: A Little Jurassic Treasure Hunt at the American Museum of Natural History.
2013, March 3: City Center Treasure Hunt.
2016: Encounters his own 1968 Halloween treasure hunt clue within the escape room Paradiso: Chapter 1.
2021, May: Games World of Puzzles magazine runs Sondheim interview with Andrew Parr, “Call Me Steve.”
2021, November 26: Dies.
2021, December: Last opening night gift of a personalized jigsaw puzzle, for the Broadway revival of Company.
2022, April: Games World of Puzzles republishes Sondheim’s puzzle, The Murder Game, from its 1983 issue, with updated graphics.
2022, November: Sondheim’s final Hollywood cameo, in the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Film, playing the computer game Among Us.
2024, June 18: Nearly $400,000 spent for ~1,800 puzzle- and game-related items at the Doyle Sondheim estate auction.