LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

We were looking for a Shakespeare play, and the four theme entries told the tale. Each concealed a dagger and some poison — OK, getting a little too Shakespearean there. Each contained a character from meta answer OTHELLO:

17-A [Big drawn dog] = MARMADUKE
27-A [Another term for the dromedary] = ARABIAN CAMEL
44-A [Bishop’s path] = DIAGONAL LINE
58-A [Constellation next to Andromeda] = CASSIOPEIA

So OTHELLO it was. Incidentally, my hometown of Staunton, Virginia happens to have a world-class Shakespeare theater, and the above picture is from their staging of Othello late last year.

cybergoober asks:

We got yer Duke, yer Bianca, yer Iago & yer Cassio. What Moor could you ask?

hibob thought there might be six theme entries:

I also looked at the character list for Dabbo and Assma.

BrainBoggler took an odd route to the correct play:

When I Googled “Shakespeare play diagonal”, the first hit I got was for the game Reversi, which of course is another name for the same game, Othello. Then it was a quick Google of Othello characters that sealed it. Now that’s something!

Similarly, Dele notes that we’re not looking for a board game, but rather:

The ShakespeaRE VERSIon, of course.

Jabberwock writes:

At first thought it was Hamlet because Marmaduke, like Hamlet, is a great Dane.

Plus the play’s title comes from Hamlet. Indeed, 34 of the 48 incorrect entries bore Hamlet’s name. Both of those red herrings were unintended, though I did notice that Marmaduke’s Great Dane-hood might throw some people off. But there wasn’t anything else I could find that used D-U-K-E without using the word itself.

Finally, Matthew G. writes:

And the motto of the board game Othello is “A Minute to Learn, a Lifetime to Master.” Much like getting hooked on metapuzzles.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 530 correct entries received, is Glenn Edwards of New York City, N.Y. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Glenn will also receive a copy of my forthcoming book Crunchy Crosswords.

VULTURE CONTEST:

I forgot to link to my second New York magazine meta contest last week, and the deadline was yesterday. D’oh! But here it is anyway. New meta of mine there every two weeks.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is an artistic profession (and no, it’s not “painter”!). Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,232 members now!) here. Or you can download the .puz file (you may have to right-click the link and save to your Downloads folder).

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.