William Finn, the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist celebrated for musicals such as Falsettos, has passed away.
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Playbill reported on Tuesday, April 8, that Finn died on Monday, April 7, after a long illness. The official cause of death has not been disclosed.
Finn was 73.
Born in 1952 in Boston, Finn has made his mark on Broadway as a lyricist and librettist, contributing to four notable musicals. His works include Dangerous Games, Falsettos, The Sisters Rosensweig (for which he penned a single song), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
In 1992, he earned two Tony Awards for the score and book of Falsettos. Later, in 2005, he received a Tony nomination for Best Original Score for his work on The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Finn’s musical Falsettos premiered on Broadway in 1992 and centered on life in the LGBTQ+ community during the early days of the AIDS crisis. The show evolved from a trilogy of one-act musicals that Finn started writing in the 1970s, according to Playbill.
The show originally ran on Broadway for 486 performances before closing in June 1993. A revival took place from October 2016 to January 2017 and received five Tony Award nominations.
William Finn Also Contributed to Film and TV Projects
In 1998, Finn debuted the musical A New Brain Off-Broadway, inspired by his harrowing near-death experience with arteriovenous malformation (AVM). The condition was successfully treated through surgery in 1992.
The composer also worked sparingly as a composer for television and movies. He is credited as a composer on the 2002 animated movie The Adventures of Tom Thumb & Thumbelina and the 2018 special The Emperor’s Newest Clothes.
Finn also served as a faculty member in the NYU Tisch Graduate Program for Musical Theater Writing. There, he “influenced hundreds of early career composers, lyricists, and book writers,” per Playbill.
Finn is survived by his partner, Arthur Salvadore.