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I've searched and can't find any reference to these on the Forum. A friend sent me this link as he thought I'd be interested. I am and I think there will be others on here that will also be interested. So, here you go....

https://blogfott.blogspot.com/2014/07/putting-it-together.html

I had no idea that Stephen Sondheim was also a crossword enthusiast and is credited with introducing crptic crosswords to the USA (see his Wiki page here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sondheim).

I glanced at one at random (November 11, Murder Mystery) - it certainly looks unusual and somewhat intriguing. But, I'll start at the first one and see if I can work my way through them.

Hi Simon,
I don’t know if you caught the Everyman centenary jumbo special last weekend. It was in the printed paper only unfortunately.

I’ve probably given the theme away by mentioning it here but 1a. is particularly good…

He penned hits, most being timeless smashes (7,8)

Many thanks for posting these

Hi Jono,

Last Sunday I was in Santiago in Chile so had great difficulty in finding UK newspapers for sale :-)

Great clue with an excellent surface.

Thanks, Simon.
I solved the first puzzle. It's pretty good.
Have bookmarked the page for future reference.

My thanks too - possible respite from an apparently intractable Listener? I knew that Sondheim enjoyed cryptics (makes sense when you consider some of his lyrics) but didn’t know that he was a setter of themed puzzles. So I’ve both learned something and have a source of (to me) new puzzles. Double whammy, Simon!

Last weekend I went to a show called The Enigmatist by David Kwong ( https://www.davidkwongmagic.com/ ). He also sets puzzles for the New York Times. After the show we were chatting about puzzles, and I mentioned I worked the cryptics, and he immediately started rhapsodizing about Sondheim's puzzles. What a co-inky-dink.

Hi geeker,

Yes, I've solved the first one too. Not too difficult but I do have a couple of queries on it.

34a I had a perfectly good answer (according to Google) from the wordplay. But I had to change the middle letter to accommodate 35d. The 'new' answer for 34a doesn't fit the wordplay and I can't find it in Google either. The blogger does say there are a few errors in the puzzles.

36d I don't understand the 'variance' from the theme word at 1a

Any ideas without giving spoilers?

Cheers,
Simon

simon, I agree with your solution for 35d.
IMO the word "housing" in 34a is superfluous, likely an error.
Remove that word from the 34a wordplay, and the final letter of the clue's solution (think Village People) gives a logical solution for 36d. The "1a 13a 36d" is a 1a landmark...I used to reside in 1a and often went running along its perimeter!

SPOILER ALERT for my possibly incoherent post 9
https://tinyurl.com/4jxz3xkh