William Finn, a witty, cerebral and psychologically perceptive musical theater author who gained two Tony Awards for “Falsettos” and had an enduringly common hit with “The twenty fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” died on Monday in Bennington, Vt. He was 73.
His longtime companion, Arthur Salvadore, mentioned the reason for loss of life, in a hospital, was pulmonary fibrosis, following years by which Mr. Finn had contended with neurological points. He had houses in Williamstown, Mass., and on the Higher West Aspect of Manhattan.
Mr. Finn was extensively admired for his intelligent, complicated lyrics and for the poignant honesty with which he explored character. He was homosexual and Jewish, and a few of his most important work involved these communities; within the Nineties, with “Falsettos,” he was among the many first artists to musicalize the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, and his musical “A New Mind” was impressed by his personal life-threatening expertise with an arteriovenous malformation.
“Within the pantheon of nice composer-lyricists, Invoice was idiosyncratically himself — there was no person who gave the impression of him,” mentioned André Bishop, the manufacturing creative director of Lincoln Middle Theater. He introduced seven of Mr. Finn’s exhibits, beginning at Playwrights Horizons within the late Nineteen Seventies and persevering with at Lincoln Middle.
“He grew to become generally known as this witty wordsmith who wrote a lot of difficult songs coping with issues individuals didn’t cope with in music in these days,” Mr. Bishop added, “however what he actually had was this enormous coronary heart — his exhibits are common as a result of his expertise was lovely and accessible and heat and heartfelt.”
Mr. Finn performed various roles throughout his profession, as a composer, a lyricist and someday librettist. His songs usually characteristic “a wordy introspective urbanity,” as Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Instances in 2003. In “A New Mind,” Mr. Finn appeared to distill his ardour for the artwork type, writing, “Coronary heart and music maintain us all alive.”
“The twenty fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” for which Mr. Finn wrote the music and lyrics, arrived on Broadway in 2005 (the forged included Jesse Tyler Ferguson), directed by James Lapine, a frequent collaborator with Mr. Finn. The present, a couple of group of awkward adolescents competing in a spelling bee, ran for almost three years on Broadway and has been wildly profitable: Over the past 16 years, it has been produced greater than 7,000 occasions in skilled, neighborhood and faculty settings, in line with Drew Cohen, the president and chief govt of Music Theater Worldwide, which licenses it.
Mr. Finn cherished the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and had an extended relationship with the Barrington Stage Firm in Pittsfield, Mass., which introduced the premiere of “The twenty fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” in a college cafeteria in the summertime of 2004.
Mr. Finn, who for years had a house in Pittsfield, went on to ascertain a musical theater lab at Barrington Stage to develop and current work by younger writers. He remained an affiliate artist at Barrington Stage till his loss of life, and in 2023 the theater introduced a well-received revival of “A New Mind.”
“Invoice was sensible, quirky, compassionate and really humorous, and he understood the reality of individuals — the true feelings that led them to do what they have been doing,” mentioned Julianne Boyd, the previous creative director of Barrington Stage. Ms. Boyd, who for years lived throughout the road from Mr. Finn in Pittsfield, mentioned he had notably been dedicated to creating younger writers as a instructor, because the founding father of the musical theater lab and for years because the host of a Labor Day weekend celebration of “songs by ridiculously gifted composers and lyricists you in all probability don’t know however ought to.”
Mr. Finn additionally had an extended affiliation with New York College, the place he was an adjunct assistant professor within the graduate musical theater writing program from 1999 to 2019.
Whilst he slowed down lately, he continued to work. He had been creating a music cycle in regards to the pandemic, referred to as “As soon as Each Hundred Years,” Mr. Salvadore mentioned.
William Alan Finn was born on Feb. 28, 1952, in Boston and raised in suburban Natick, Mass. His father, Jason Finn, labored for a paper merchandise firm; his mom, Barbara (Cohen) Finn, had quite a lot of jobs and at one level owned a consignment retailer.
A lifelong theater lover, Mr. Finn claimed to have written his first play as a Hebrew College mission. “I don’t know what it was about,” he instructed Pill. “But it surely was horrible, I assure it. I couldn’t write performs, and I couldn’t actually communicate Hebrew, so how good may it’s?”
He attended Natick Excessive College after which Williams School in Williamstown, the place he wrote three musicals. He graduated from Williams in 1974 with majors in English and American civilization. The school gave him its Bicentennial Medal for achievement in 1998, an honorary diploma in 2006, and its Kellogg Award in 2009; and final 12 months, at his fiftieth faculty reunion, his closing music cycle was carried out there.
After graduating from Williams and a short detour to California, he moved to New York, the place over a number of years he wrote a trio of musicals a couple of character named Marvin who leaves his spouse for a person and finally reconciles with each his sexuality and his household: “In Trousers” (1979), “March of the Falsettos” (1981) and “Falsettoland” (1990). All three have been staged at Playwrights Horizons.
“In Trousers” was panned by Richard Eder of The Instances (“A naked germ of an thought,” he wrote), however “March of the Falsettos” scored a rave from the newspaper’s Frank Wealthy (“The present is only some bars previous earlier than one feels the unmistakable, revivifying cost of pure expertise”), and Mr. Finn was on his means.
“March of the Falsettos” and “Falsettoland” have been finally mixed into one present, “Falsettos,” which opened on Broadway in 1992 (“Exhilarating and heartbreaking,” Mr. Wealthy declared). The present gained two Tony Awards, for Mr. Finn’s scores and for its e-book, which Mr. Finn wrote with Mr. Lapine. The present was revised and revived on Broadway in 2016 (“Exhilarating, devastating,” wrote Charles Isherwood of The Instances), and it has been periodically carried out elsewhere.
“Falsettos,” which ends with the loss of life of a fundamental character, was adopted by much more difficult work, together with “A New Mind” (1998), which is about primarily in a hospital, and a music cycle referred to as “Elegies” (2003), which Mr. Finn wrote about misplaced family members, prompted by the terrorist assaults of 2001. “As his work has grown graver, the viewers for it has contracted,” Jesse Inexperienced wrote in The Instances in 2005.
However that was adopted by “Spelling Bee,” which transferred rapidly from Barrington Stage to an Off Broadway run at Second Stage, after which to Broadway. That present was life-changing for Mr. Finn — “success on a unique magnitude,” he instructed The Charlotte Observer in 2006, including, “I sort of stroll round smiling like a drunken fool.”
Mr. Finn had quite a lot of different initiatives over time, together with a musical adaptation of the 2006 movie “Little Miss Sunshine,” which had a run Off Broadway in 2013, and a musical adaptation of the George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber play “The Royal Household,” referred to as “The Royal Household of Broadway,” which had a run at Barrington Stage in 2018.
Along with Mr. Salvadore, his companion of 45 years, he’s survived by a sister, Nancy Davis; a brother, Michael; and lots of nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.
“Invoice was completely unique — sui generis,” Mr. Lapine mentioned in an interview on Tuesday. “Songs simply poured out of him, all the time in his voice and all the time very private.”
