Broadway composer and lyricist William Finn, 73, died on April 7. Finn wrote his first play as a teenager: “The first play I ever wrote was in Hebrew. I have no idea what it was about. But it was horrible, I guarantee it. I couldn't write plays, and I couldn't really speak Hebrew, so how good could it be?” His three Off-Broadway shows, In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, and Falsettoland, were trimmed into one play, Falsettos, which won him a Tony Award. He went on to write A New Brain, about his own struggle with arteriovenous malformation (the show starred Malcolm Gets and Kristin Chenoweth, and I am kicking myself for missing it). His other shows including The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Romance in Hard Times, Little Miss Sunshine, and several revues. Finn told Brendan Lemon that as a child, “I loved every Broadway show, unlike today. It’s not the fault of the musicals. It’s that all of a sudden I feel I know too much. I wish I could go back to those times when I was enthralled.”
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