WILLIAM FINN, an American composer, was born (d: 4/7/2025). He was an award-winning American composer and lyricist, especially of musicals. Finn was a heavily autobiographical writer (he always wrote his own lyrics); his topics were the gay and Jewish experiences in contemporary America, and very often conflict, loyalty, family, belonging, sickness, healing, and loss.

Finn was especially well noted for his work on what was to become a trilogy of short musical shows off-Broadway. In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, and Falsettoland all chronicle the lives of the character Marvin, his ex-wife Trina, his boyfriend, Whizzer, his psychiatrist, Mendel, and his son, Jason. He lived with his life partner in New York City, where he is an independent composer and writer. He was also Adjunct Faculty Composer/Lyricist” at NYU.

Mssrs. Finn and Lapine would again collaborate in 1998, developing a work Mr. Finn had loosely based on his near-death experience following brain surgery. A New Brain‘s main character Gordo is a thinly veiled stand-in for Mr. Finn himself, as a man struggling with a potentially terminal arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Mr. Finn’s longtime partner, Arthur Salvadore, was represented in the form of Roger Delli-Bovi, and Mr. Finn’s mother is also present in the piece. The musical premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater, winning the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. 

The writer-director duo’s third cult classic musical would come in the form of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, for which he wrote both music and lyrics, with a book by Rachel Sheinkin. The show was first workshopped at Barrington Stage Company, where Mr. Finn later created the Musical Theatre Lab (MTL), one of the most beloved developmental programs for emerging musical theatre writers striving to create new works. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee won two Tony Awards in 2005- Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Dan Fogler. The show received four additional Tony nominations, including Best Musical, Best Direction for Lapine, Best Original Score for Mr. Finn, and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Celia Keenan-Bolger.

In addition to these three musicals, Mr. Finn has produced three musical revues: Infinite Joy, Elegies: A Song Cycle, and Make Me a Song.

Mr. Finn and Lapine’s fourth musical, Little Miss Sunshine, premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 2011. The show played Off Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in 2013. His long-developed adaptation of the play The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, The Royal Family of Broadway, was finally staged at Barrington in 2018. Featuring a book by Sheinkin, the show follows a girl from a family of great Broadway actors who contemplates leaving show business altogether. 

He was a member of the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theater Writing faculty, where he influenced hundreds of early career composers, lyricists, and book writers. He is survived by his life partner, Arthur Salvadore.