Puzzle playwright during live recording, at first (8)
I believe the answer is:
bewilder
'puzzle' is the definition.
('bewilder' can be a synonym of 'puzzle')
'live recording at first' is the wordplay.
'live' becomes 'be' ('be' can be a synonym of 'live').
'recording at first' becomes 'wilder' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'be'+'wilder'='BEWILDER'
'playwright during' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bewilder that I've seen before include "Wild beer tending to confuse" , "Confuse utterly" , "Baffle" , "Flummox, confuse" , "Confuse, puzzle" .)