Saturday Midi

Happy to be back with another midi, with some clues that I hope you'll find entertaining! The clue for 37-Across comes courtesy of a realization I had about a year ago while watching Scooby Doo with my 3-year-old niece...there's always one random person in addition to the gang in each episode, and that's always the culprit! So glad to have made heads and tails of that enigma in my 30's. Tomorrow will bring another guest puzzle that I'm very excited to feature. Have a great Saturday! 🧩

Amanda

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Theatre Thursday #17

It's that time again, and this week's show choice is Kitt & Yorkey's 2014 musical "If/Then", starring my second favorite human after Julie Andrews. If you didn't get a chance to see it, there's a pretty good recording of it on Youtube starring the one-and-only Jackie Burns. The show opens in a park, where the protagonist is faced with a choice: go hang out with her friend Kate (who wants her to open herself up to new experiences and new people) or go with her friend Lucas (who thinks she should focus on her career). The remainder of the show then depicts the two paths that the protagonist's life could take if she made either decision. The ultimate message: while the choices we make do affect our future, if something is truly meant to be then it will come to pass. The show was met with mixed reviews -- many people found it confusing and hard to follow (this writer disagrees) -- but the score is truly incredible and was actually the highest-charting Broadway cast recording since "The Book of Mormon". I recommend giving it a listen! It's good, and also...you know...10-Across. Enjoy! 🎭🧩

Amanda

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Midi Puzzle

Back again with a midi puzzle, and today's marquee entries are both drink mascots. Why? I honestly couldn't tell you. I saw 9-Across on Twitter (I have no idea how/why) and then just ran with it. Decided to have a little fun with the black squares today too. Hope you enjoy! 😊🧩

Amanda

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Puzzle #16: "Dangerous Ground" by Amanda Rafkin and Ross Trudeau

I'm still out of town, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet! Today's puzzle is by me and Ross Trudeau and we made it quite a while back -- probably almost a year ago now! (The fact that we're right around the corner from September is just next-level mind boggling). Hope everyone's having a great Sunday! 🧩

Amanda

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Midi Puzzle: The Piano Men

This weekend I'm out of town (well, like two hours outside of LA) playing in what will probably be the only music gig I'll have for quite some time, given the way things are going. It's a drive-in concert (which is completely new to me) that features the music of 11- and 22-Across. We did this same concert last year, though indoors in a theater, and I'm grateful to get a chance to reprise it outside it this summer. I really miss the performing arts both as a spectator and performer and I hope that we can continue to come up with creative solutions like drive-in concerts until it's safe to go back to doing things as usual. I have a puzzle set to post tomorrow as well, so I hope you enjoy both! 🧩

Amanda

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Theatre Thursday #16

It's Theatre Thursday once again, and today we're talking about none other than the 1949 Tony winner for Best Musical: "Kiss Me, Kate". This show was the composer's response to Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!", which had taken the musical theater world by storm by introducing a new type of musical in which the songs were fully integrated with the book and played an active role in character and story development. (The composer's name is in the grid, so I will not be saying it up here). Incidentally, it was also the only show of this composer's that ran for over 1,000 performances on Broadway. The story of "Kiss Me, Kate" comes courtesy not only of Shakespeare, but of some real-life stage drama as well. Husband-and-wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (after whom the Lunt-Fontanne Broadway theater is named) had co-starred in a 1935 production of "The Taming of the Shrew" and shared both some on-stage and off-stage drama. This drama was witnessed by future Broadway producer Arnold Saint-Subber and in 1947 he approached Bella and Samuel Spewack (who were undergoing some marital drama of their own) to write the script. Bella, in turn, enlisted the composer, and the rest is history! I hope you enjoy the solve! 🎭🧩

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Variety Puzzle: Left and Right

Today's puzzle is another type of variety puzzle that I really enjoy making called Left and Right. I have a handful of different types of variety puzzles that I like to make, and I'm hoping to post them once a week in a rotation, such that each type will show up approximately once a month. Back tomorrow with a crossword: none other than Theatre Thursday 😊🧩

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Amanda