You Bid and You Bargain
Inside the Stephen Sondheim auction
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.
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.
More information about Barry Joseph’s upcoming book, Matching Minds With Sondheim, can be found by clicking here. His instagram is @matchingmindswithsondheim.
You can find out more about playwright and songwriter Michael Mitnick 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.
Click here to visit Grace O’Keefe’s own website, and find out more about her comedy cabaret séance by visiting the Summoning Sondheim site. Her Instagram is @grace_o_keefe.