WILLIAM FINN. the Writer/Composer who mined his own gay/Jewish life into Tony Award winning Musicals has died aged 73

The extraordinarily talented writer/composer William Finn mined his own life as a gay Jewish man in NY who created a trilogy of award-winning musicals that were particularly admired by what a ‘friend’ viciously described as ‘show tune queens.’  That’s a tad too dismissive of a man (and his fans) who lyrically captured a whole generation of gay Jews taking the first steps of coming out of the closet. Also because of his religious background, he was also somewhat fixated with loss causing the Washington Post to dub him ‘the composer laureate of loss”.  His first bg success was in 1992 with Falsettos part of a trilogy of short musicals that chronicled the lives of the character Marvin; his ex-wife, Trina; his boyfriend, Whizzer; his psychiatrist, Mendel; and his son, Jason.

It ran for 486 performances. and went on to garner seven nominations at the 46th Tony Awards, winning two: the  Tony Award for Best Original Score as well as the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical  Later a critically acclaimed revival opened on September 29, 2016, at the Walter Kerr Theater and went on to garner five nominations at the 71st Tony Awards, including Best Revival. The songs lived on in cabarets for years like this version of (one of QG;s favorites)  ‘What Would I Do’ sung by Zachary Prince & (his real-life boyfriend)Brandon Uranowitz

Finn would go on writing a musical based on using his own life like when he had a near-death experience following brain surgery.  That musical, A New Brain, starred Malcolm Gets, Kristin Chenoweth and Chip Zien, and premiered at the then Off-Broadway venue, the Lincoln Center Theater in 1998. The musical won the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical and had an UK  at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

But asides from all the ‘infinite joy’ his work gave Finn did not shy away from darker themes, including with his song cycle Elegies, which featured songs about friends dying from AIDS as well as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks

James Lapine, a regular collaborator  told the New York Times  this week  “Bill was totally original — sui generis,” Songs just poured out of him, always in his voice and always very personal.”