Learning as You Play: An interview with me for the Cozy Companion
Snowbright Studio is an LGBTQ+ game studio dedicated to creating unique and heartwarming experiences for people of all ages and backgrounds. Founded and led by my friends Grace Collins, the CEO and former education policy expert, when they asked if they could interview me for their adorable publication, the Cozy Companion, of course I said yes.
The Cozy Companion is described as a portal to all things warm and cozy in tabletop gaming. Each issue includes “cozy RPG adventures, recipes, crafts, fiction, game reviews written by cats, and more within.” Yes, cat game reviews.
The title of my interview is Learning as You Play, and is described as an “Interview with game designer Barry Joseph and the tea wizards at Friday Afternoon Tea!”
With their permission, you can view or download a pdf of the nine-page interview below, or go here to buy a copy of the entire issue.
A Day on AI in Museums & the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Last week,on October 29th, I had quite the day, first exploring the intersection of digital games and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and then exploring AI and the future of museums.
First, I joined Games For Change’s Games & SDG Summit. The event — held on the top floor of the United Nations, overlooking the East River — brought together 180 thought leaders, decision makers, and policymakers from 130+ organizations, representing 15 countries, for a day of engaging discussions, hands-on working groups, and an interactive arcade centered around four key themes aligned with core UN Sustainable Development Goals. You can check out photos of the event on their Flickr page.
It was inspiring to hear how the gaming community and international countries & NGOs are working together to advance the SDGs. It was also wonderful to reconnect with many colleagues and friends from the gaming and education worlds.
Then, I headed home to join the2024 Future of Museums Summit. The Summit grows out of Elizabeth Merritt’s work as the American Alliance of Museums’ Vice President for Strategic Foresight and Founding Director of the Center for the Future of Museums – a think-tank and research & development lab for the museum field.
After many years issuing their informative and provocative annual TrendsWatch reports, last year saw the print-form expand into a multi-day, online conference. I was excited to take part in offering an interactive sessions, to help the event bring in more than one learning modality.
I lead: “Shall We Play a Game? AI’s Role in the Future of Museums.” We invited participants to explore the integration of artificial intelligence into museum education through interactive and thought-provoking activities.
The session featured hands-on experiences like AI-powered games “Peanut Butter and…” and “Contexto.me” to illustrate AI’s content generation and contextual adaptation (we beat Contexto’s AI in 6 guesses!), along with my “Uncannny Valley” card game (pictured below) to examine visual literacy and the differences between human perception and AI modeling. Attendees also engaged in community mapping to collectively assess AI’s disruptive and transformative impact on museums. My goal was to offer practical insights and inspiration for museum professionals, educators, and tech enthusiasts interested in the future of cultural institutions in the AI era.
Overall, quite a lifting day, focused on working with others to build a better tomorrow.
Launch of new web site for the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum
When we launched the web site for the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, in the summer of 2023, all we knew is we needed a way for visitors to buy tickets and get directions.
Over time we found many other ways to use the site. Virtual tours. Events. Press coverage. A store. And every time we added another feature the site got even more challenging to navigate.
This summer, working with a volunteer from NYU’s LTXD department, we developed a new design and this week we finally launched it.
Along side The Huntington, the Bullock Museum, National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Transcription Center, and the Glenstone Museum, I presented (see video below) about what it took to redesign the web site. Our slides are available here a well: MCN Slides Clicking Refresh.
Presenting Video Games: The Great Connector at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums
This week I was thrilled to present in Philadelphia at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums. Along with my colleagues Nick, Masaya, and Matthew, we offered Leveling Up: Designing a Community Generated Video Game Exhibition.
For 90 minutes we explored how designing an exhibition with direct community engagement can lead to deeper and richer experiences for visitors and advance equality within an industry.
Fall Conference Update – Where to Catch Me on the Road
I am gearing up for a season of conferences. Will I see you there?
My book talks continue apace (for both Seltzertopia and my upcoming Matching Minds with Sondheim), but I hit a dry spell in regards to having my museum conference proposals accepted. Then, as they say, when it rains it pours! Check out below and let me know if I will be coming to a neighborhood near you.
October 9 – Philadelphia, PA
I look forward to attending, for the first time, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums. The topic: Leveling Up: Designing a Community Generated Video Game Exhibition. The hat I will wear: project lead on last winter’s video game pop-up.
Exhibitions have the ability to support visitors as they explore their interests, expose them to new perspectives, and challenge their ideas and preconceptions. By engaging the community in the development process you make something that can have a lasting impact on how they see themselves, their community, and their future. Our exhibition—Video Games: The Great Connector—was developed by the Harlem Gallery of Science. It addresses inequality and under-representation of the Black and Latinx community in the gaming industry by highlighting the ways games help young people build community, explore aspects of their identity, develop and refine skills, learn concepts, and identify future career opportunities. In this session, we will explore how designing an exhibition with direct community engagement can lead to deeper and richer experiences for visitors and advance equality within an industry
October 23 – Lawrence, Kansas
My first MCN was in 2015. It has remained one of my favorite museum-related conferences and I go whenever I can. This year (my 10th?) I was thrilled to join the following panel: Clicking Refresh: Website Redesign as Institutional Reintroduction. The hat I will wear: co-founder of the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.
Organized by Kevin McDonald, Digital Content Coordinator at the Glenstone Museum, our panel will feature a wide range of museums tackling the topic.
A website redesign is never just a fresh coat of paint: a new digital home on the web provides opportunities for institutions to reintroduce themselves from the ground up. This session encompasses a series of lightning talks that explore website redesign projects across a range of American institutions and content areas. Including projects at all stages of development, the panel explores each institution’s goals for shifting their brand, expanding their audience, or solving existing problems for their users… When the web site for the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum launched in 2023, its goals were simple: capture emails and sell tickets. Since then, it has accumulated content: press coverage, a virtual museum, a special events calendar, and more. As the Museum approaches the start of its second year, the web site needs to offer a more seamless way for visitors to explore the Museum and a more developed “voice” that expresses its character.
October 29 – Online
I missed last year’s first virtual Future of Museums Summit, but I am NOT going to miss this year’s. (I think) I am presenting Shall We Play a Game? AI’s Role in the Future of Museums. The hat I will wear: general all-around AI educator and museum designer.
I will offer an interactive and thought-provoking session that explores the dynamic intersection of artificial intelligence and museum education. We will delve into the potential and challenges of integrating AI technologies into the museum experience.
November 26 – 27 – Online
I have presented in the past at MuseumNext on topics like failing forward and games in museums. This time around I will be presenting with my colleagues at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the Museum Marketing Summit for our session: Beyond the Likes: The Realities of Influencer Campaigns. The hat I will wear is general purpose digital experience design consultant.
We plan to share our experience using social media influencers to engage middle school science teachers with our free, web-based Research Quest curriculum. Learn how we bridged influencer data with user analytics to gain a complete picture of campaign effectiveness, uncover surprising insights, and navigate unexpected challenges. This session offers practical strategies, data-driven decision-making, and real-world examples to help you achieve meaningful results in influencer marketing, especially in the education, museum, and nonprofit sectors. Discover how to go beyond the likes and drive true engagement.
Finally, below are two videos from presentations I gave earlier this year at the Expert Educator Exchange:
June 19: Gaining Visibility as a Thought Leader Through the Written Word.
How do you gain visibility as a thought leader through the written word? Do you write a blog, author books, pen articles, post frequently on LinkedIn, etc? Come connect with your peers and share best practices.
June 20: The ESSENTIAL Kick-off Meeting Agenda.
What are the key items you MUST cover in that kick-off meeting with a new client? What are the essential tools to for creative collaboration and communication? Come learn from a seasoned professional.
Strategic Planning for Hunter College Campus Schools
One of my favorite projects this year just made public some of our work together, and I am excited to share it below.
If you are unfamiliar with schools in New York City, you might not know of Hunter College Campus Schools. This describes two schools that share the same building and together cover K-12. And they are some of the best in the country. Founded in 1869, they are also free to attend after an intense (to say the least) application process yet not administered by the city’s Department of Education. They serve a diverse population of NYC children who have been identified as intellectually talented.
It was an honor to get to work with this community, meeting with dozens of current students, alumni, faculty, parents, and community supporters (business leaders, elected officials, Hunter college staff, etc.). Together we developed the tag line for a series of new videos we produced: A Unique School for an Exceptional City. The videos are new tools for attracting applicants at the school’s two entry points, Elementary and High School.
Both of the videos are available below. They were developed with Phellix and Katie from Phe Studios, who are stellar partners. Working with the schools’ key stakeholders we developed scripts (taking a strong lead from the students) then spent a few amazing days filming them on campus.
I am really proud of how these videos turned out, each one welcoming potential applicants. If you take a moment to watch them I suspect you will be just as amazed as we were with this school and its students.
Every year I volunteer to run a category within the GEE! Award in the category of informal games. This year our panel of judges select GASHA GO! World (play it here).
The three judges were: Ashlyn Sparrow, a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago Press; Chris Baker, a public library consultant and games and learning consultant with the library services team of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction; and Nick Martinez, Vice President of Education and Engagement at the Museum of the City of New York.
GASHA GO! World is a really easy to access flash-style game that invites predominantly a K-2nd grade audience into a fictional world that includes these miniature creatures called Gashlings. Developed by Georgia Public Broadcasting, the Georgia Department of Education, and FableVision Studios, the game includes minigames, animated videos, vocabulary cards, and additional support materials in both English and Spanish. Crafted to align with Georgia’s computer science (CS) framework, it emphasizes computational thinking, digital citizenship, innovative design, and creative communication. The game invites players to join this world and help the Gashlings to solve different problems using critical thinking.
Judges appreciated that GASHA GO! World focused on a number of different minigames that got players into the mindset of computational and logical thinking, while also being mindful of the fact that you are also making things for other people. “It really was great to help people start to identify as people who can problem solve, and there are multiple different ways to problem solve, but also that we need to be kind human beings.” They found it to be a really great example of a whimsical world that makes sense for young children while also allowing for a playful problem solving modality. At the same time, the sequencing for the game was really great. “You got to learn things pretty early in a simple way and then apply that in increasing complex situations across the multiple levels of a game type. And so as you play, you learn.”
Here is a summary of the areas where GASHA GO! World excelled at reflecting the learning principles described by James Paul Gee:
Agency: The game allows players to experience consequences for their actions, with the possibility of failing a puzzle but being able to try again. This low-stakes environment encourages experimentation and understanding of problems.
Customization: The game excels in customization, allowing players to build avatars, create stuffed animals with different designs, and customize glitter globes by unlocking various stickers and pieces through mini-games. This feature serves as the glue connecting all mini-games and provides a personal touch to the gaming experience.
Manipulation: Manipulation in the game is specific to each mini-game. The ability to manipulate objects varies depending on the problem to be solved, with different mini-games requiring different types of manipulation.
Sequencing: The game is strong in sequencing, especially evident in a cleanup game where complexity increases progressively. Players learn how each item impacts the game world and how to sequence actions to solve increasingly complex problems.
Pleasantly Frustrating: While adults might not find the game frustrating, it is designed to present challenges to younger players. The need to think about sequences and hold multiple combinations in mind can provide a pleasantly frustrating experience that encourages repeated attempts and learning.
Cycle of Expertise: The game does a decent job of exploring the cycle of expertise by introducing new challenges that build on previous knowledge. Each mini-game encourages problem-solving from different perspectives, whether it be matching, deconstructive reasoning, or constructive reasoning.
Just in Time & On Demand: The game scaffolds challenges well, focusing on one skill at a time in each mini-game. Players can progress at their own pace, with new levels unlocking based on their readiness and achievements.
Skills Under Strategies: The game emphasizes mastering different skills across various levels and mini-games. To progress, players must become proficient in the skills each mini-game is designed to teach.
System/Model-based Thinking: The game touches on system or model-based thinking by linking mini-game outcomes to the creation of a snowglobe. Players think about what they gain from each mini-game and how it relates to other parts of the game, promoting a holistic approach to problem-solving and creativity.
Situated Meaning: The game creates a playful and whimsical world with a cartoonish, colorful design. While it lacks a straightforward narrative, it provides enough context and connectedness to engage the target audience. The playful themes and activities, like karaoke and locker puzzles, contribute to the situated meaning and motivate players to explore and solve problems in this imaginative setting.
Finally, GASHA GO! World is particularly well suited to this category of informal learning games. “I think of parents being able to just say: Hey, I want a really whimsical world to bring my kiddo into for problem solving and asking questions about different things.” Or perhaps the setting is a library, or a museum. “It’s a really cool way to just invite kids to game and problem solve while gaming.”
As many of you know, the last two years I have been deep into researching and writing my new book, which comes out spring of next year: Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend.
It has been such an honor to work on this book, to conduct over 30 hours of original interviews with more than five dozen people who knew the man (as friends, as collaborators), and unearth games and puzzles he designed over the past seventy years.
As a month from now I plan to turn in the manuscript, I thought this might be a good moment to take a breather and share some recent highlights with you.
The above image is one part of a promotional bookmark I made to spread the word. And no, it’s not a typo. It’s a puzzle, one often used by Sondheim in his treasure hunts. And it takes a second piece to solve. The first 20 people who contact me directly on either the book’s Instagram or Facebook account and ask for it, and send me a SASE, will get one for free. SPOILER: Click here to watch an animation of the solution.
Last month saw the long-awaited arrival of the Sondheim house auction, in which more than half of the nearly 3,000 items were puzzle- or game-related. I’m still processing it all! You can read a great interview with me about it from The Sondheim Hub, watch my video of the closing of the gonzo final lot (after a marathon non-stop 10.5 hours), or my breakdown of the top ten board game lots.
As I write the book, I post tidbits or outtakes on my Insta. What do you get when you combine Stephen Sondheim + Anthony Perkins + Gore Vidal + Sue Mengers + Dyan Cannon? Find out in this recent post in which J.B. Taylor replied: “This might be the best mash-up of people/themes in a story that I’ve ever read.”
Finally, I’ve been blessed with over a dozen readers digging into the chapters, performing heroic line edits, and giving me invaluable critical feedback. My favorite so far, in response to a particularly poignant conclusion to one of the chapters, was: “This chapter cracked my heart open.” That’s me with K., below, one of my reviewers, when we ran into each other at Carnegie Hall (seeing Follies).
My three other books are still out there, and available for reading and gifting. Need a beach read?
(And a reminder to those who have already bought any of them – THANK YOU! And please please post a rating and comment on Amazon, as your voice goes a long way towards increasing its visibility).
Seltzertopia
You can find my book Seltzertopia on Amazon or, if you want a signed copy, you can buy one from my museum here. (Wait? Did you say museum? Yup — based on the book, and a real-world old-fashioned seltzer works — Alex Gomberg and I launched the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum. Come visit us!).
I am STILL regularly invited to spread the gospel of seltzer. A little song, a little dance… Most recently I was (remotely) in Pittsfield, MA and, closer to home, presented at my wife’s temple in New Rochelle. You can check out this map of everywhere I have been since 2018. If you’re not on it, reach out to me and let’s change that!
Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums is a great guide for place-based design AND a lovely series of case studies (and original short stories) about what it’s like to work on the bleeding edge of innovation at one of the greatest museums in the known universe.
“A wonderful guide to the kind of agile, experimental, responsive operational strategies needed in the museum of the future.” —Elizabeth Merritt, founding director, Center for the Future of Museums, American Alliance of Museums
“Personal and engaging, this book reveals the opportunities and surprises of working directly with museum visitors in designing new digital experiences. It offers even the smallest museum insights into how to design things that visitors—even teenagers— will enjoy.” —Seb Chan, director and CEO, Australia Centre for the Moving Image
“Part how-to guide, part seminar workshop, and part magical mystery tour of Barry’s time at the Museum—an essential introduction to how digital technologies can (and can’t!) transform the visitor experience.” —Bella Desai, former director of public programs and exhibition education, American Museum of Natural History
Friday is Tomorrow, or The Dayenu Year: Chronicles from the NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive is not an easy sell. Want to read a book about how I dealt with losing my dad a few weeks into the COVID lock-down? Want to revisit the challenging decisions you had to make when faced with a multiyear pandemic?
If so, Friday is Tomorrow is the book for you! (I self-published it through Amazon).
Seriously, Friday is Tomorrow tells the uplifting story of how I learned to maintain traditions in a time of uncertainty while continuing to reach for my dreams.
That’s it, for now. What comes after my book on Sondheim? You’ll just have to wait for my next newsletter to find out. Until then, I know you are just as excited as I am for next week’s bizarro return of the world’s best science fiction writer, China Miéville, having teamed up with Keanu Reeves to adapt his (yes) comic book, BRZRKR, into the novel “The Book of Elsewhere,” described by the NYTimes as “a pulpy, adrenaline-fueled thriller, [that is] also a moody, experimental novel about mortality, the slippery nature of time and what it means to be human.”
How you holding up? Between the weather and the politics (both domestic and global), 2024 has been, well, a lot, right?During such chaotic times I have had the fortune of being grounded in so many meaningful projects designed to bring some good into the world. Thanks for taking a few minutes to learn about them below (sans the books and games, which get their own newsletter).
I won’t mentioned them all (as who has the time, and not all are public) but as a few have sunset in recent weeks, that means I have space for one more modest size project to add to my plate. If you know of an opportunity, please let me know.
Quick Bites
In Winter I wrapped up work with PBS Kids, alongside my amazing collaborators at Knology.
After three and a half years, I am so proud of all I was able to achieve with Gaming Pathways, supporting the launch of this new way for public school students (high school AND college) to enter NYC’s gaming industry. From strategic planning to research to event production and so much more, it’s been a privilege to work with such amazing people from across the participating core organizations.
In Spring I began to work with the Hunter College Campus Schools. (If you are not from the area, they are free public elementary and high schools for gifted youth founded over 150 years ago with the belief that education was the foundation of social mobility in New York City. Afterwards Lisa Siegmann, the Director said:
“Working with Barry Joseph Consulting to develop a strategic communication plan for an impending transition was a valuable institutional investment. His energy, insights and dedication made the project both productive and easy. His clarity of vision, combined with his willingness to listen and pivot as needed, generated ideas and avenues we would not have found without him!”
For the Hunter College Campus Schools I also had the pleasure of partnering with Phe Studios to produce two phenomenal promotional videos.
Finally, you can see in the photo at the top that after three and a half years, I FINALLY got to go out and visit, in person, my first client, the Natural History Museum of Utah, where I support them with strategic planning, data analytics, user research, and email marketing for their Research Quest education site.
Video Games: The Great Connector
Those who know my work over these past three decades know that my professional work contains multitudes: youth development, racial and gender equity, informal learning, digital learning, games-based learning, experience design, museum design, writing, and evidence-based decision making. I am so grateful that my work usually addresses at least one of these interests.
Sometimes, when I am lucky, my work addresses more than one. Video Games: The Great Connector, however, spoke to ALL of my interests, at once! What a dream project.
The Harlem Gallery of Science hired me to do research for, building a team to create, then project lead the development of Video Games: The Great Connector. This free, pop-up exhibit received thousands of visitors when it ran this past winter, double the projected numbers. You can read more about my reflections on the project here. You can also dig into the exhibit below:
Connecting with Self: This section of The Great Connector explores how young people use video games to shape their identity, manage emotions, and cultivate skills. Connecting with Community: This section of The Great Connector explores how young people use video games to connect with the people and communities around them. Connecting with Future: This section of The Great Connector explores how young people can prepare for a career in video games.
We received some nice coverage as well from NY1. Now, the exhibit is looking to travel. Maybe you will help bring it to a space by you.
Brooklyn Seltzer Museum
Everything is popping over at the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum. It’s hard to know where to begin!
This week we received our official 501C3 from the IRS. We are now formally a non-profit, and chartered by New York State as an educational organization.
This spring the Museum unveiled a new exhibit: a 24-foot long mural with artifacts called THE CULTURAL FIZZ-STORY OF SELTZER, telling a tale through original comic art that goes back 2,500 years (see above). It was developed with graduate students from Teachers College Columbia University.
We celebrated National Egg Cream day on March 15th with The 2024 National Egg Cream Invitational. Before a sold out audience, we hosted soda jerks from the best of the classic and modern soda fountains in New York City’s five boroughs, and beyond. They competed to settle the argument on how to make the best egg cream once and for all. Read my summary of it here or watch the mini documentary to find out who won here.
Wish you could visit the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum from the comfort of your own home? Now you can. The new Virtual Seltzer Museumwill give you a sense of the many delights that greet our visitors. In fact, just for you, we may even include some extra special online-exclusives.
Don’t tell anyone (at least not yet) but the online store went online just yesterday. Go here to get your Museum merch.
Follow us on Instagramhere and learn more about the Museum and get tickets to visit here.
New York University
I had another wonderful semester as an adjunct in NYU’s Learning Technology and Experience Design program. The opportunity to adapt lessons from my book, Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums, is always such a thrill. The students are so diverse and inspiring and I love being part of that academic community.
Let me know what is new in YOUR world. Wishing you the best!
A fun interview with me about the Sondheim Auction
The Sondheim Hub is a lovely new blog out of England. Alex, who runs it, reached out to include me in his deep dive into the Doyle Sondheim Auction experience. He interviewed a total of five people them spliced them together to create an oral history of the day. Work past the various typos and I think you’ll find an exciting narrative!
You Bid and You Bargain
Inside the Stephen Sondheim auction
Jun 30, 2024
Buy a lot Or even two. Have I got A lot for you!
So say the four bathing beauties of Boca Raton in Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show. But this month, at a landmark auction in New York City, a total of 454 lots were up for grabs—and every single item was sold.
On June 18, The Collection of Stephen Sondheim went under the hammer at Doyle Auctions. The collection included a vast array of memorabilia, furnishings, antique puzzles, and much more besides—personal effects drawn from Sondheim’s Manhattan townhouse and his country home in Roxbury, Connecticut. Unsurprisingly, this auction attracted a huge amount of interest globally, from fans and collectors alike.
The financial success of the auction is certainly eye-catching: it brought in more than $1.5 million overall, and the more chronically online among us will have seen the often dizzying amounts paid for individual lots. My own thoughts turn here to the $25,600 handwritten Into the Woods quotation (“Careful the things you say, children will listen”), the $14,080 Passion quotation (“Loving you is not a choice, it’s who I am…”), and the $44,800 West Side Story Gold record. I wish…
But facts and figures only get you so far, even when pondering an event so explicitly numerical. I was keen to find out what it felt like to actually be there. To that end, I’ve been in touch this week with five people who were in the room where it happened (four literally, one virtually): Michael Mitnick, Melanie Kahl, Julian Wilson Forest, Grace O’Keefe, and Barry Joseph. I’m so grateful to them for their time and insights! I hope you’ll agree that their combined accounts paint a fascinating picture of a truly unique moment in time.
Let’s start with a little background:
Michael Mitnick: In high school I heard my older sister’s recording of Merrily We Roll Along, specifically “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” I realized this was something so much richer than other musicals I’d heard. In high school I also started writing my own songs, so I wrote to Sondheim and, of course, he wrote back. I didn’t meet him until I was in grad school, but he was the reason I wanted to do what I do.
Melanie Kahl: I grew up in a really musical family. My parents are both pianists and choir directors, and so musical theater was always in my world. And in particular, less of the first era of musical theater—we were very much a Sondheim home. I did Into the Woods in high school, my brother played in Into the Woods in college, we went to the 80th birthday lecture… So, we’ve always been enthusiasts.
Julian Wilson Forest: In about 2016, for whatever reason, I was just in the right place to make that full dive into basically everything Sondheim had created. And that was the foundation of all of my love of musical theatre. His music is just incredible. The world of this music is just so striking. It feels so different from anything else I’ve ever heard. Whether it’s musicals or it’s rock’n’roll or it’s any of the music that I have always loved, this to me just feels so intelligent and intentional and thoughtfully made, and just so creative and so different.
Barry Joseph: I have a book coming out next year, spring of 2025, from Applause Books, tentatively called Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend. It’s the first book to dig deep into all the different puzzles and games that Stephen Sondheim loved engaging with as a player and creating for the people in his life. That falls into five categories: party games or parlor games, depending on how you want to call it; board games; treasure hunts; word games, which are usually crossword puzzles, specifically cryptic crossword puzzles; and then what are called physical puzzles, which I break down into jigsaw puzzles, puzzle boxes, and escape rooms. And they trace his life from when he was a teenager until he passed away. And because his stuff was private mostly—playing games with friends, making a parlor game with friends, being invited to make a treasure hunt for friends—most of the stuff wasn’t available in a public way, and most of it hasn’t been stored anywhere.
Grace O’Keefe: I actually found out about the auction when it was announced and everyone started sending it to me, and I had literally just booked plane tickets to the States from 21st June, three days after the auction—which was devastating, obviously. I naturally would have planned around it, had I known. But I was still toying with the idea of getting a one-way ticket to New York, because you can do that pretty cheaply from London. And then I presented one of the songs from Summoning Sondheim for Book, Music, & Lyrics, which is a music theater writing course, and our guest lecturer that week was Jeremy Sams. He’s worked with Sondheim before and was a friend of his, and he told me after I presented the song that there might be tarot cards, which is obviously very relevant to Summoning Sondheim. So I was like, “Yeah, I need to get over there.”
BJ: I spent two years just looking in the background of photos, at the blurry edges, to try and discover what the game was on his wall in Turtle Bay. And there’s a documentary filmed in his Connecticut home. What is that puzzle box on the piano? And to go from that to suddenly having these amazing photographs when both the properties were up for sale, really detailed high-res photographs where you can zoom in and see what that board game is on the wall from 1800s France… That was remarkable enough.
But to then see the items that were available when the auction first went online, and that 31% of the lots were puzzles or games-associated, was remarkable. I counted roughly 3500 individual items that were up for auction from the two homes. 1800 of them were puzzles and games. More than 50%. So more than 50% of the items who went up for sale were the very things I’d been studying. That was amazing.
MK: That weekend, my partner and I went to just go visit the exhibition, almost just like a museum exhibit. And I had just wrapped up a project, so I had a rare Tuesday that was not as filled. And I was like, “Oh, I’ll go to the beginning of the auction.” I had a list. But I had a hunch all these prices were extraordinarily low for what they should be. I was getting a little too confident looking through the catalog…
BJ: And then to go to the exhibition, which was open four days before the auction itself, and to see them with my own eyes, to hold them with my own hands, to manipulate them, to open up the boxes of jigsaw puzzles and put them together on the table before even anyone in the auction house had even had time to do it—so I’m the first one perhaps in decades who put these together. It blew my mind. It was like walking into a museum of my book.
JWF: I remember just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling on the Doyle website, and then finally getting to what I was looking for, which was anything that was related to what he used to write. The sheer number of books on George Seurat was amazing to see, because there were so many books on just him alone, and on his art and on the the Sunday painting.
BJ: When the auction went up, there were two lots composed of games he designed: one in 1953 called Stardom, and one I think in the late 50s—we don’t have a date—called The Game of Hal Prince, or sometimes just called Producer. The first game is about when he lived out in LA, imagining a fun, campy mechanism for exploring all the starlets and the gossips around them at the time. And The Game of Hal Prince is about producing a Broadway show. It’s an economic game where you have to manage that. And both were thought lost in the 1995 fire or thrown out.
So when we hear that Stardom is 100% complete, and they had everything in The Game of Hal Prince except for the board, it blew everyone’s mind. Stardom came with a letter that expressed his intention to commercialize it, with variations. It was just amazing. And even though they got pulled out of the auction, we now had access to all of this.
And so, we reach the day of the auction itself: Tuesday June 18, 2024.
Melanie Kahl: I had a little spreadsheet, and I was like, “I’m going to go just as a New York experience.” And I ended up getting there at 9:20 and being, I think, 15th in line. I ended up actually canceling some meetings to stay, and ended up staying from the very beginning to the very end. It was wild.
Barry Joseph: We’d seen what had happened with the exhibition. They had had an event, a cocktail party, and there were so many RSVPS—450 people—that they had to extend it an extra hour. So, we had no idea what was going to happen with the auction. We didn’t know if we were going to get there and be told, “There’s too many people inside. You have to wait for a few hours.” So, many of us got there early, before it opened at 10:00. By the time it opened, the line went from Doyle’s, which was in the middle of the street, all the way to the avenue, just packed with people. They only let in a few people at a time so they could process us. They needed our credit card. They needed our information. They needed our ID. And they gave you your lot number.
Julian Wilson Forest: It was my first auction experience. I come from a working class family—not a lot of money to throw around. The whole idea of an auction seemed like something from from a remote world, because only people who had money went to auctions. So this was my first time doing this, and I’ve never had an interest in even doing them before.
Grace O’Keefe: It was a really lovely experience in the room. I got talking to my next-door neighbor quite a bit. His name is Daniel. He actually let me buy a music stand off him after the fact. But yes, there was a lot of solidarity in the room, because a lot of online bidders were winning a lot of them, or by phone. It was such a nice, wide group of people. There were a lot of young people coming to look at the stuff in the days before as well, which was so encouraging to see, both as a Sondheim lover and as someone who has a show about Sondheim coming up.
Michael Mitnick: Everyone was cheerful and friendly. I was surprised by how many younger people there were — a few of them were even doing some of the highest bidding. It was weird to see some of the things that I remember from his house, but it felt like these were going to people who really loved him, and he also knew there would be an auction of whatever wasn’t donated.
MK: I feel like we all made some unexpected friends. One of my seat mates for about two hours was the guy who bought the lot of pictures that included one from Barbra Streisand. He’s an avid collector. And I might get one small piece from that lot, which is really meaningful to me. This particular picture is one of him in front of stained glass. I’m hoping I’ll find out this week if I can actually buy it from him.
JWF: When I came across those four volumes, the thesauruses—I think they were just different prints—I was like, “That’s really what I want.” And I remember talking to my wife about it and saying, “There’s other things that are really cool, but this is so important to his writing and to how he crafted everything and everything being so intentional, and his being able to explain every word, every nuance, every note.” So I was like, “If I can do anything in this auction, I want to try and get get these thesauruses”—which I’m laughing about now, because it’s kind of hilarious.
MM: I was surprised the thesaurus and reference books sold for so much. I’d say there is little to no chance they were the main ones used by Sondheim — as he famously marked up his dictionary, and for a guy who used the thesaurus for decades, these had no marks and were in fine shape. Maybe they were back-ups.
JWF: I did it remotely. I did it online. It starts, and the first item up I think went for $4,000—and it was estimated for between $400-600. So I texted my wife and I was like, “This is not going to work. This is not going to be in our price range.” And the numbers just stayed up there, in the thousands. I’ve never really been in a situation where you could literally watch people bid thousands upon thousands of dollars. When those first items went for really big numbers, you could hear people in the room laughing and talking and exclaiming, and then clapping when the bids were done. Because I think everyone was realizing that this is going to be an experience. This is going to be a battle. If you came here expecting to get something, you’re going to have your work cut out for you.
BJ: The auction house is saying they sold over $1.5 million. From my estimates, $400,000 of that was spent on puzzles and games. Larger items and furniture made more money, but those games and puzzles brought in $400,000. The tabletop games, of which there were 312 items, made just under $250,000. Then comes card games: just under $50,000. 147 items of card games: tarot games, transformational decks and such. And then he had over 1200 books or periodicals, games magazines, books on games, books on cryptic crosswords. About $30,000 went to that.
Barry Joseph’s paddle
MK: I had my eye on on quite a a few things. With this type of auction, you soon learn that you need to have backups. When pencils start to go for $6000, you know that you’re probably not going to get that those pictures that you wanted. Sometimes you raise your paddle just to feel something. And so my strategy after a certain point was unexpected deals, and I kept a few things top of mind that I really wanted.
BJ: One of the crazy things that blew everyone’s mind in the room was this box that I guess is a bed for a cat, and sold for so much money. When it was getting so high, and it seemed ridiculous—even to the person bidding, who’s on the phone—the person who’s representing him on the phone asked a question. He said, “Does it come with a cat?” Everybody in the room laughed. And then, once it was sold, someone in the room said, “Look, I made a cat.”
MM: I bought the floral club chairs from the country house (you can see them in the New York Times and New York Magazine articles about Company and Here We Are. Also, a board game, a small mahogany dressing table, and the daybed. I was happy that the main items from his city music room — desk, chair, city daybed, coffee table, and piano — were all saved, maybe for the future offices of the museum. But it’ll be fun to think about the songs Sondheim wrote on the country daybed — Into the Woods through Here We Are.
MK: I started realizing that small furniture could be very good for a New York apartment, but not all of it matched my style—so I ended up leaving with this one piece that was a bit more modern. It’s a brass and green marble table that looks so beautiful in my living room. Structurally, it’s very clean lines. It’s brass and marble, so in and of itself it’s very well-made and mid century. And my style isn’t as much the kind of regency style that was throughout the apartment, or federalist, or more baroque. There weren’t a lot of furniture pieces that really matched my apartment and taste. And so in some ways, this was a perfect deal because it fit exactly where I needed it to, and it was something that matched my taste, but not necessarily the predominant taste of what was in the collection.
JWF: More and more and more, I’m just like, “I don’t know what I’m even trying to do here. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even trying this.” Because, again, the totals were just crazy. But I was like, “I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to see what happens.” Well, finally we get to the thesauruses, and I hit the button immediately. I got the first bid in, which is for 100 bucks. And then boom, it hit $20,000. I swear, the amount of time that the thesauruses were up for bidding maybe amounted to 30 seconds. At the end of the day, it does give a little bit of a story. It’s an interesting mystery as to who wanted those thesauruses that much.
GO’K: My goal was obviously the tarot cards. There’s no more on-brand item in this world than the tarot cards. It was estimated for $400-600. I don’t mind sharing I spent $2,000 on them. There were 13 decks included in the lot. I bid on the tarot cards, which ended up going for $2,000. My budget was $3,000—my entire investments in the US. And then I spent the other $1,000 on the music stand, which is this oak, fold-out sheet music stand. Which, oh my God, I’m very excited about that too, and will eventually transport it to England. Right now it’s still sitting in my sister’s New York apartment, because I didn’t feel like taking it on the train back down to Baltimore.
Those tarot cards were the very last lot of the day. I’m so thrilled that Melanie, Grace, and Barry were able to offer a blow-by-blow account of this exhilarating finale:
Melanie Kahl: In many ways, it was the perfect way to end the day because there were so many small moments of camaraderie throughout, these little side conversations of people splitting lots, or people getting really excited when the gen Z group got their deals. I thought it was so cheeky that the last lot was a tarot lot. And I had put it as my unexpected, “Well, if I don’t get anything, it’s the last lot, and I do really want it.”
Barry Joseph: When Peter [Constanzo, auctioneer] opened it, he said, “This is the last lot of the sale. We’ve one more. Lot 456 is a group of tarot and fortune-telling cards.” And he said, “I wonder what card we’ll pull, and I wish you all very good fortune. Thank you for being with us.” By the time we were in hour nine, there were maybe five people still bidding in the room. Someone on the phone bid $300.
Grace O’Keefe: We start bidding, and I know I’m getting these tarot cards no matter what. I’ve taken out all of my US stock market investments, because what better investment is there than Sondheim tarot cards? So when we get to the last lot, which is the tarot cards, I followed what I saw Daniel do, because I’ve never been to an auction before. He waited for the first few bids, and then started putting his number up. My number was 113—and 13 is my lucky number, so I was like, “We’ve got this. We’ve got this.”
MK: And so I start bidding, and in my head I’m like, “It has to be under $1000,” because I had already spent money. And so I stuck my paddle up for a while, and then we got to like 700 or so. Things were heating up. I thought we were going to close, but online started to go nuts. All of a sudden, online started in earnest.
BJ: And then at $700, Grace in the front row picked it up, which meant there was competition in the room. Melanie and Grace start talking to each other, and they started negotiating strategy, like, “Wait, wait. Let them keep bidding it up on the phone first.” And then Melanie starts yelling out something like, “Anybody want to pitch in?” We are now a team, we in the room. And she then explains by saying, “The internet’s not going to win!”
MK: I saw Grace in the front. And I saw her put her paddle up. And I’m like, “Okay, if somebody in the house has it, that’s fine.” But then, with the heat of the online, I was just like, “We can’t let this happen. We have to win it in the room.” So I stood up and I was like, “I’m in. Let’s win this.” But I started rallying the group, because I’m a little bit more cooperative than competitive in that way. And Grace got it. She looked back at me, we locked eyes, and she was like, “Okay, I’ve got it.”
GO’K: I was like, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it. We’ll talk afterwards. Let me get it, and I’ll sort you out.” So she was coaching me, like, “Bid now! Bid now! Hold! Hold!” against the internet. The auctioneer was like, “Eyes on me,” because I kept looking back to try and screw over the internet.
BJ: It was somehow important for the last item to be won by the true Sondheim fans who’ve been there for 10 1/2 hours. And Melanie is just rooting Grace on, and rooting us on to root her on. Peter says, “I don’t know what you’re saying out there,” meaning, “I know you two are talking to each other. I have no idea what you’re saying.”
MK: Obviously, the auctioneer was confused. This doesn’t happen. And I tried to rally some more people. It ended up being just being us two, and obviously the internet got a little timid as we got closer to $2000. And I walked up to the front and just had faith that we’d work it out. There was such a spirit of mutual appreciation. And she obviously really wanted it—and you want somebody to get something they really want. The fact that we had enough tacit trust to make that happen was super special.
BJ: Grace is in the front row. The computers are behind her. She’s looking over her shoulder to see, are they putting up their hand? What are they doing? But Peter needs her to look at her. And so he says, “Excuse me, keep all eyes up here, please.” Everyone laughs. But it was crazy, where he was losing control of what was going on. People in the room were negotiating with each other, telling us to revolt against the online people. And then she wins. Everyone erupts in applause. It’s the end of the day. Melanie embraces Grace. It was such an exciting finish to the day. It was so dramatic.
GO’K: Apparently, a bid came in literally right after he said, “Sold”—so I’m very lucky. At the exhibition, I did ask the cards if I was going to get them—and I pulled a blonde lady, which is funny because both me and Melanie are blonde. So, they were right!
MK: Grace had pulled cards before she came. She had pulled a card that was the blonde. And so when she looked back at me, that knowing glance was her actually being like, “Oh, this is the blonde woman that I should be looking for.”
“… and maybe they’re really magic. Who knows?” It seems fitting that the Baker’s Wife, who also tells us that “you bid and you bargain or you live to regret it,” poses this particular question too.
So, that was a deep dive into the Sondheim auction! My sincere thanks to all five contributors, whose website links and Instagram handles you can find below.
In closing, I was particularly touched by this reflection of Barry’s. It seems the perfect note on which to end:
BJ: On the one hand, it’s fun to think about having access to all these things. On the other hand, someone we care deeply about because of his work has died, and this is his collection. So there’s a vulture aspect to it, and a crass commercial aspect as well. It’s the kind of thing that would be criticized in his very shows. And so everyone that I think was always constantly aware of that balance. And in fact, some people I’ve spoken with who won stuff afterwards, someone told me they had a sort of survivor’s guilt, Like, “Who am I to have these things in my home? He died. I didn’t die. I didn’t know him personally. Now I have his things in my house.” And there’s an awkwardness about that.
But on the other hand, all these things that he treasured are now being sent out all over the country, all over the world, by people who will appreciate them, who will appreciate that they came from him, that will appreciate what it means to have this pencil, to have this cat box, to have this jigsaw puzzle. And in that way, this collection of items which were important to Sondheim, the joy that he had in them, can now go out into the world.
The Sondheim Hub is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
You can find out more about playwright and songwriter MichaelMitnick by visiting his website at this link. His instagram is @michaelmitnick.
Learn more about Melanie Kahl’s wide spectrum of work by visiting her website at this link. Her Instagram is @melanie_kahl.
Julian Wilson Forest is working on a new album that will be available in the next year. His music can be found on Apple Music, Spotify, and you can connect with him on Instagram @julianwilsonforest.
I am formerly the VP of Digital Experience at the Girl Scouts of the USA and Associate Director For Digital Learning at the American Museum of Natural History.
When I began at the Museum I used this blog to talk about my adventures, exploring issues related to digital media and museum-based learning. I featured original interviews, thought pieces, and highlights from my work and those of my colleagues at the AMNH.
Starting in 2020, with the launch of Barry Joseph Consultancy, LLC, I turned this blog into a place to explore digital engagement writ large.
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