Biography of William Finn

Mr. Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score.  He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, two Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Award, and Guggenheim Fellowship in Musical Composition).  Mr. Finn wrote the lyrics to Graciela Daniele’s Tango Apasionado (music by the great Astor Piazzolla) and, with Michael Starobin, the music to Lapine’s version of The Winter’s Tale.  His musical, Romance in Hard Times, was presented at the Public Theater.  Recently, he wrote Painting You for Love’s Fire, a piece commissioned and performed bye the Acting Company, based on Shakepeare’s sonnets.  For television, Mr. Finn provided the music and lyrics for the Ace Award-winning HBO cartoon “Ira Sleeps Over,” “Tom Thumb and Thumbelina,” “Pokey Little Puppy’s First Christmas,” and, with Ellen Fitzhugh, two “Brave little Toaster” cartoons.  Mr. Finn has written for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and The New Yorker.  A graduate of Williams College where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship for Musical Composition, Finn now teaches a weekly master class at the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theatre Writing.  His most recent projects include Elegies, A Song Cycle (Lincoln Center) and The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which ran on Broadway and has been produced nationally and internationally, as well.

Shows by William Finn

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The
Make Me A Song