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

Midi Puzzle

Back in action on this fine Tuesday with a midi puzzle whose two marquee entries are both really stinkin' cute. I used this picture of The Beatles (as referenced in the clue for 3-Down) so as not to give anything else away. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! 🧩

Amanda

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Puzzle #15: Guest Puzzle by Rachel Fabi

I couldn't be more thrilled to be featuring Rachel Fabi on Brain Candy today! Just a couple of weeks ago she dazzled us with her grid at Lollapuzzoola (and her midi on the sidsgrids.com takeover!), so I'm totally honored to get to feature her here today. I'm also just a big fan of her work overall! This is a really fun puzzle and, in my eyes, also a really big mood. Enjoy! :)

Today is also a very special day for me because this post is my 100th post here on Brain Candy! There have been 113 puzzles in just over 100 days and I truly cannot believe it. It feels like both yesterday and also a very long time ago that I took this on, and now this site -- like everything else -- has become suspended in the time warp that is 2020. Moving forward from here, I will likely pull back a hair from my daily posts in order to open up my time to work on a puzzle project I'm very excited about (and hope you will be too). You can expect a full-sized grid on Sunday, Theatre Thursday (of course), and a few midis throughout the week. Probably weekly variety puzzles as well. I'd love to hear any feedback anyone has regarding things you've enjoyed and/or anything you'd like to see more of or less of here. Looking forward to the next 100 days 😊🧩

Here's Rachel: I pitched this theme to a few more mainstream outlets and received a resounding "no you cannot run a [four-letter word]-themed puzzle in our esteemed publication," so I knew it was going to be indie or bust! This is my first indie-blog puzzle, and I'm super grateful to Amanda for being so excited about my pitch for the opportunity to publish a puzzle on her site. Out of respect and admiration for Amanda's brand, I tried to lean in on musical theater in the clues whenever I could. Hope you enjoy solving it as much I enjoyed making it!

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Saturday Midi

This little guy pictured above is a kinkajou, as represented in the clue for 28-Across. I've been sitting on the clues for 11- and 23-Across for a little bit now, so I was happy to find that they were symmetrical and could both find a home in this puzzle.

See you back here tomorrow for a guest puzzle by a fabulous constructor whose name I just know you'll be stoked to see. Tomorrow is a special day for another reason as well, but more on that later!😊🧩

Amanda

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