Jazz composer Garner / SUN 9-21-25 / Breaded, fried Japanese pork cutlet / Regular at a park with half-pipes, informally / Miniaturized Amazon smart speaker / Classic drinking "sport" / 2012 Disney film set inside an arcade / 1995 Sandra Bullock cyberthriller / Grand duke of Luxembourg beginning in 2020 / Holiest locales in synagogues, traditionally

Constructor: Adrianne Balk

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Gimme a Break!" — a KIT KAT MINIS rebus (112A: Bite-size chocolate-covered wafers ... or a hint to what's found in five squares in this puzzle); the puzzle has five "KIT KAT" squares where KIT works in the Across and KAT works in the Down:

Theme answers:

• KABUKI THEATER / SKATE RAT (23A: Traditional form of Japanese drama / 18D: Regular at a park with half-pipes, informally)
• WRECK-IT RALPH / TONKATSU (34A: 2012 Disney film set inside an arcade / 21D: Breaded, fried Japanese pork cutlet)
• TIKI TORCHES / "LOOK AT ME NOW!" (59A: Festive outdoor lighting options / 40D: "I made it big time!")
• TEST KITCHEN / MEERKATS (72A: Place to perfect a recipe / 52D: Members of the mongoose family)
• FOSTER KITTEN / SNEAK ATTACK (98A: Certain rescue pet / 78D: Ambush)

Word of the Day: Ariana DEBOSE (33D: Oscar-winning Ariana of "West Side Story") —

Ariana DeBose (/ˌɑːriˈɑːnə dəˈboʊz/; born January 25, 1991) is an American actress and singer. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2022, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

DeBose was a contestant on the sixth season of So You Think You Can Dance in 2009, where she finished in the top 20. She made her Broadway debut in Bring It On: The Musical in 2011 and continued her work on Broadway with roles in Motown: The Musical (2013) and Pippin (2014). From 2015 to 2016, she was one of the original ensemble members in Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton, and appeared as Jane in A Bronx Tale (2016–2017). In 2018, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Donna Summer in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. She has also hosted the Tony Awards in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

DeBose has also appeared in the Netflix musical comedy film The Prom(2020) and the Apple TV+ musical comedy series Schmigadoon! (2021–2023). She gained wider recognition for her role as Anita in Steven Spielberg's musical film West Side Story (2021), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She provided the voice of Asha in the animated film Wish (2023). (wikipedia)

• • •

I've never heard of KIT KAT MINIS until ... just now. I just looked them up and I think maybe I've seen them in the candy aisle at CVS, but ... let's just say KIT KAT MINIS does not hit as hard as KIT KAT BAR—esp. when the puzzle sets you up with a title like "Gimme a Break!" You know how that jingle ends, right? I guarantee you it does end with "break me off a piece of that KIT KAT MINI." I mean, can you even "break" a mini? It's already mini. The whole point of "Gimme a break!" in the jingle is that traditional, regular-sized KIT KAT bars come as multiple *attached* wafers, and you can "break" one off to eat yourself or maybe share, or whatever; the point is, everyone knows the phrase "KIT KAT BAR"—it rolls off the tongue, unlike KIT KAT MINIS, which has no staccato beauty to it; it just dies. The title (strongly) suggests KIT KAT BAR, but we get KIT KAT MINIS. Boo. I get the idea here—that you've shrunken the KIT KAT down to a "mini" size in order to fit all those letters in one box, but still, there is no musicality in KIT KAT MINIS, no iconic quality to KIT KAT MINIS. It's a disappointing revealer, is what I'm saying. Also disappointing—how one-note the theme is. Once you've got it, you've got it. The KIT KAT thing just keeps happening. I got the first KIT KAT and thought "huh, interesting, a candy rebus ... wonder what the revealer will be." And then the next rebus was also KIT KAT, which was deflating, because at that point, I knew the theme had no more to offer. That's not entirely fair, because I did still need to see how the puzzle would negotiate those KIT KAT squares (by far the most interesting thing about the puzzle). But the one-notedness of the puzzle was a bit of a drag. 

On a non-theme note, the grid itself was kind of a problem, as it's insanely choppy, just riddled with black squares, which makes for a megaton of very short answers (which is never pretty stuff, esp. in volume). PSST TSKS ITO EBON ETRE ECCE ICEES etc. It's actually not nearly as bad as it could've been, but still, I really felt the choppiness. The theme is very dense—deceptively so. Five rebus squares doesn't seem like a lot, but those squares make for ten theme answers, running in both directions, all of them fairly elaborate (marquee-worthy), which puts a lot of pressure on a grid. So I can cut the choppy grid some slack for that reason. I just wish there'd been more interesting fill outside the theme answers themselves. My favorite non-theme answer was probably "SO LISTEN ...," though FIRE PITS and GIDDINESS also acquit themselves admirably. IN A COMA, however ... for so many reasons, I would retire that answer right this minute.

There weren't many really hard parts today, although the difficulty level overall felt fine—not too easy. The worst part, for me, from a "how did I not know that?" perspective, was Ariana DEBOSE. I'm reading that clue like "wait, this person won an Oscar? Recently? And I have never ever heard of her? How!?" I mean, West Side Story ... that was one of the early COVID years, right? (Yes, 2021). Right after I saw Parasite in early 2020, theaters shut down, and I didn't start seeing first-run movies in the theater again until maybe late '22. I know there was streaming, and I was streaming a lot of movies, but most of them were from the '30s-'70s (the TCM (not TMC) sweet spot). I know my Movie Club watched West Side Story at one point, but I didn't go that week. I didn't really have any interest at all in that remake, though people I know who saw it loved it, so, my loss. But back to Ariana DEBOSE—clearly very accomplished, somehow completely off my radar. The most bizarre thing about that is that ... it turns out that I was staring at her (stylized) face just yesterday, as I flipped through the new (Style) issue of the New Yorker. They reimagined a bunch of old covers with real (photographed) people in them, and one of those covers featured Ariana DEBOSE, and I actually remember thinking "I have no idea who that is." And so I had the "I have no idea how Ariana DEBOSE is" reaction twice inside of 24 hours. Maybe I'll remember now.

[Ariana DeBose, actor. Original cover by Lorenzo Mattotti, January 11, 1999.Photograph by Camila Falquez for The New Yorker]

I had trouble with a few other names. Like, no idea who the Grand duke of Luxembourg is, in 2020 or in any year, so if you tell me HENRI (?) I'll believe you because that is a real French name, but that answer could not have meant less to me if it tried (19A: Grand duke of Luxembourg beginning in 2020). Some aristocratic European billionaire? Shrug. I forgot the ECHO DOT existed, but at least I've (vaguely) heard of that (104A: Miniaturized Amazon smart speaker). I'll be putting an Amazon surveillance robot in my house precisely never. All smart speakers are double agents. Pass. What the hell is Love, ROSIE? If it's not ACTUALLY, or ... SIMON? Is that a thing? Yes, it is! Hurray for my memory, anyway, those are my Love fill-in-the-blank movies. I do not have room for another, ROSIE, sorry.

["Love, ___" (2014 rom-com starring Lily Collins)]

Bullets:

• 62A: Classic drinking "sport" (PONG) — the game is "beer PONG," right? You can't leave the "beer" off. There's no WINE PONG. (Is there?). BEER PONG would be a great answer. PONG, clued beerlessly, isn't.
• 3D: Tik-Tok in the Oz books, for one (ROBOT) — I have an old copy of Tik-Tok of Oz lying around here somewhere. My grandpa gave it to me in the '90s. I've never read it because my copy is so fragile, but I'm very familiar with the front cover.

[Now that's what a ROBOT should look like. If the ECHO DOT looked like that, I might change my mind about it. Don't just play my favorite songs, take this blunderbuss and go walk my mule!]

• 5D: 1995 Sandra Bullock cyberthriller (THE NET) — Gen X and old Elder Millennials dropped this answer in so fast. I don't know how the rest of y'all handled it. Hang on for some antique internet action:

• 71D: It incited a famous 18th-century "party" (TEA ACT) — oh, right, that "Tea Party." I was thinking of the other, more recent "Tea Party" that sprang up in the wake of Obama's election, so I wanted to write in RACISM here. And it fit! But no, wrong century.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. it's autumn again and you know what that means! Yes, obscenely early Halloween decorations, there's that. Pumpkin spice invasion, sure. But also ... the Boswords Fall Themeless League. Join the friendly, at-home competition. Get a taste of crossword tournaments without all the flop sweat of in-person tournaments (just kidding, everyone looks and smells nice at tournaments). These are going to be fresh, high-quality puzzles. Test yourself! Treat yourself! Here's the info, from organizer John Lieb:

Registration for the Boswords 2025 Fall Themeless League is open! This 10-week event starts with a Preseason puzzle on Monday, September 29 and features weekly themeless puzzles -- clued at three levels of difficulty -- from an all-star roster of constructors and are edited by Brad Wilber. To register, to solve a practice puzzle, to view the constructor line-up, and to learn more, go to www.boswords.org.   

P.P.S. Happy birthday to my best friend, Shaun. I've been celebrating this day for 34 years now. It comes with its own soundtrack!

[in Michigan, on the dunes, 2022]

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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