William Finn composed a series of stage works that generated considerable anticipation among devotees of musical theater, foremost among them the three productions tracing the life of bisexual protagonist Marvin—In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, and Falsettoland—raising expectations that he might emerge as a leading theatrical songwriter and eventual successor to Stephen Sondheim. A serious health crisis in the 1990s briefly halted his momentum, yet once he regained his strength he turned the episode into the autobiographical musical A New Brain.
Raised in Natick, Massachusetts, Finn studied at Williams College and received the Hutchinson Fellowship in musical composition upon completing his degree, the same honor previously bestowed on Sondheim. His initial recognition arrived with In Trousers, the earliest Marvin installment, which Playwrights Horizons developed and first presented off-off-Broadway beginning February 21, 1979. Finn supplied music, lyrics, and book for the piece, whose buoyant melodies, incisive lyrics, and candid exploration of a modern man’s marriage and subsequent departure for another man drew notice; Original Cast Records issued a cast album the same year. He revisited the character in March of the Falsettos, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons on May 20, 1981, transferred to an off-Broadway venue, and ultimately tallied 298 performances; the score earned lasting esteem, with historian Steven Suskin later describing it in Show Tunes as “a very special theatre work, and arguably the best score of the 1980s.” DRG Records preserved the production on disc.
Playwrights Horizons mounted a workshop of Finn’s next musical, America Kicks Up Its Heels, beginning March 2, 1983, though it never received a full mounting; the material was later reshaped into Romance in Hard Times and received a brief workshop staging at the Public Theater on December 28, 1989. In 1984 Finn was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship. He supplied lyrics to Astor Piazzolla’s music for Tango Apasionado, which opened off-off-Broadway on November 6, 1987; the work was revised and retitled Dangerous Games, reaching Broadway for a limited engagement that began October 19, 1989 and marked Finn’s Broadway debut.
Falsettoland, the concluding Marvin musical and the first to place its characters amid the AIDS epidemic, opened at Playwrights Horizons on June 28, 1990, moved off-Broadway, completed 215 performances, earned the Outer Critics Circle Award for best off-Broadway musical, and was recorded by DRG. The two one-acts March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland were subsequently joined into the full-length Falsettos, which reached Broadway on April 29, 1992, ran 487 performances, and brought Finn Tony Awards for best score and best book.
Beginning in the early 1990s Finn contributed songs to several animated children’s features: The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas (1992), Ira Sleeps Over (1993), The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1998), The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1999), and The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina (2002). Around the same period he received a diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor that ultimately proved operable. After successful surgery he chronicled the experience in A New Brain, which premiered off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater on June 18, 1998, completed 78 performances, received the Outer Critics Circle Award for best off-Broadway musical, and was preserved by RCA Victor. Four days after the opening, his one-act play Painting You joined the evening of short works Love’s Fire at the Public Theater. In 2000 and 2001 Finn and a vocal ensemble presented Infinite Joy: The Songs of William Finn at Joe’s Pub; RCA captured the performances for an album issued in May 2001.
