CDA: William Finn

I was sad to read in The Times that William Finn had died (age of 73). He was a writer of musicals, often the lyrics, music, and book - - I saw his Falsettos, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and A New Brain. He was a singular voice, a unique blend of the sweet and the acerbic.

My friend Scott and I saw him being interviewed at The Gay Center back in May of 2005. Jeez, almost 20 years ago! If we'd had a baby that night that baby would be in college. If they chose to go to college, of course.

Here's my write-up on the interview, as I wrote about it at the time in an email called The Gayest Week Ever:

Scott flew into town from Wisconsin sometime that afternoon, and I met him at the Gay Center in Chelsea after work. Where else could we start The Gayest Week Ever? I’d never been there before, and we went directly to a second floor conference room. It used to be a men’s room, and its walls were painted with a startlingly pornographic mural by Keith Haring, in his signature kinetic style. We looked at it for a good ten minutes.

We were there because they were hosting an interview with and performance of songs by William Finn, a Broadway musicals composer whose current Broadway hit is The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He also wrote Falsettos and a musical dramatizing his bout with a brain tumor, A New Brain (I did not make that up). The audience was mostly people in their 50s and above, quite a number of old male-female couples, with a few 40-something Chelsea gay men thrown in. There was one boy who looked about 16, there with his parents, it was the dearest thing I’ve ever seen. He was wearing a bubble gum pink polo (Bubblicious pink, to be precise), with the collar turned up. I said to Scott, “He got that look from watching *The Isaac Mizrahi Show*.”

Finn was marvelously droll, full of grouchy <<bonhommie>>. His interviewer was young and lovely, with carefully groomed eyebrows (Scott sang, “He’s got Judy Garland brows”), but dumb as a stump, and Finn does not suffer fools gladly.

JUDY GARLAND BROWS: I notice that lots of your musicals are about crusty middle-aged gay men. Any particular reason for that?

FINN: [looks at him with a quizzical expression] Well, uh, I’m a crusty middle-aged gay man. What more do ya need to know?

After twenty minutes of this kind of repartee, Finn was good and ready for the audience question-and-answer section of the evening, when at last someone would ask him something intelligent. A few singers from Spelling Bee did some of his songs, a couple from that show and a couple from other shows, and they were impressive. We stuck around after it was over and Scott got his autograph (Scott’s luggage was heavy with things to be autographed).

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Here's my favorite number from a Finn show - - "I'm Breaking Down" from Falsettos performed by Stephanie J. Block. This woman's husband left her for another man and they're planning their son's bar mitzvah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYfgkCuLeVI