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Los Angeles Times
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Thank you, William Finn, for these ‘Falsettos' lessons: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
Since learning that the great composer-lyricist William Finn — who wrote 'A New Brain' and 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' — died Monday, I've been revisiting a cast recording of 'Falsettos,' his 1992 musical comedy about family and friendship in the early years of the AIDS crisis. The Tony-winning stage show, created with James Lapine, combines two of Finn's earlier one-act musicals about Marvin and his loved ones — a new partner, an ex-wife, a teenage son, a psychiatrist and some neighbors — and follows their individual efforts to feel 'normal' in a time of personal change and societal uncertainty. I recommend a listen to anyone for whom our current state of crisis feels inescapable. With lyrics about lamenting the 'happy, frightened men who rule the world' and how 'I feel more helpless than I have in years,' it's a cathartic score that allows you to rage, cry and laugh about what is no longer, what could have been and what's still ahead. (The iconic 'I'm Breaking Down' — delivered here by Stephanie J. Block while cooking, kitchen knife in hand — is basically all of us.) And yet, the piece is also a reminder that the answer to it all, at least in the immediate and everyday, is to prioritize love. Invest in one another, create your community and embrace even the unlikeliest of bonds, as those relationships are the ones that might end up helping you get through it. As The Times' Barbara Isenberg wrote in 1994, 'Finn has long used his musicals to redefine both what a family is and how it's supposed to act. Family, says Finn, 'is the people who, when you need them, are there.'' I'm Ashley Lee, here with my fellow Times staff writer Jessica Gelt with a fresh Essential Arts newsletter. As the 'family' of 'Falsettos' sings, 'Let's be scared together.' 'Regency Girls'A Jane Austen-style road trip comedy? This new musical centers on a Regency-era woman who, pregnant and unmarried, gathers her best friends and sets off to visit a woman who helps those with 'female troubles' (a character based on a real-life 19th century figure). Directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, the world premiere features music by Curtis Moore, lyrics by Amanda Green and a book by Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan. The production, which opened Thursday night, runs through May 11. Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego. Sounds of L.A.: Celebrating the Jazz Legacy of AltadenaThis weekend, head to Brentwood to fete the vibrant jazz scene of Altadena, as the Getty Center's Harold M. Williams Auditorium is the site of two complementary and celebratory concerts. The Saturday evening lineup includes Tony Dumas, Quinn Johnson, Joel Taylor and Louis Van Taylor; the Sunday afternoon show is all about the Bennie Maupin Ensemble. Tickets to the performances are free with online RSVP (and make a day of it with The Times' guide to the museum's 22 must-see pieces). Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood. Sai Anantam Devotional EnsembleThe year of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda continues with an evening of music, readings and film dedicated to the legacy of the late musician and Hindu spiritual leader. The ensemble includes students of her former ashram, with featured performers Sita Michelle Coltrane, Radha Botofasina, Surya Botofasina and Shyam Reyes. The program is presented in connection with the Hammer Museum's exhibition 'Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal' — a portion of which explores her spiritual transcendence, including televisions playing her famed broadcast 'Eternity's Pillar.' Sunday, 6:30 p.m. The Nimoy, 1262 Westwood Blvd, Westwood. — Ashley Lee FRIDAY After Hours/Desperately Seeking Susan Directed by Martin Scorsese and Susan Siedelman, respectively, this double bill pairs two essential portraits of downtown NYC life, each celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.6 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 6:30 p.m. Sunday. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd. A.I.M by Kyle Abraham The adventurous troupe presents a program that includes 'YEAR' by Andrea Miller and Rena Butler's 'The Shell of a Shell of the Shell.'7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. SATURDAY The Avett Brothers The eclectic folk-rock band is joined by Charles Wesley Godwin.7 p.m. Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont Ave. Indian Classical Music Tanmay Deochake, Soham Gorane and Atharva Kulkarni perform on harmonium, vocals, keyboard and tabla.6 p.m.. Herrick Chapel at Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road. The Library of Maps: An Opera Long Beach Opera premieres a new performance edition of Pauline Oliveros and Moira Roth's innovative 2001 opera aboard the RMS Queen Mary.7:30 p.m. Saturday. 2:30 p.m. April 13. The Queen Mary, 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach. Dune/The Flintstones Vidiots welcomes Kyle MacLachlan for screenings of the actor's first collaboration with David Lynch, the 1985 adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic (followed by a conversation). MacLachlan will introduce the 1994 modern stone-age comedy.6 p.m. 'Dune'; 9:45 p.m. 'The Flintstones' (separate admissions). The Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. St. Matthew Passion Musica Angelica presents two Baroque orchestras and a cast of vocal soloists performing Johann Sebastian Bach's depiction of Christ's Passion story.6 p.m. Saturday. First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241 Cedar Ave.; 3 p.m. Sunday. First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave. SUNDAYCorktown '39 A political thriller written by John Fazakerley and directed by Steven Robman about a Irish Republican Army assassin and a plot to kill the king of May 25. Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. Documentary Now! A 10th-anniversary event celebrating the mockumentary series with Bill Hader and Fred Armisen in person; part of the American Cinematheque's 'This Is Not a Fiction' festival.7:30 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. Every Brilliant Thing Amanda Zarr performs writers Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's story about a little girl growing into a woman as she creates a list of things that make life worth living in an attempt to save her mother from depression.7:30 p.m. Bette Aitken Theater Arts Center, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend Critic, radio host and podcaster Jason Bailey marks the upcoming release of his new biography of the late 'Sopranos' star James Gandolfini with book signings and screenings of four of the actor's movies, which the author will introduce.'Not Fade Away' (2012), 1 p.m. Sunday. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 700 W. 7th St., Suite U240, downtown L.A. 'Crimson Tide' (1995), 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Frida Cinema, 305 E. 4th St., Suite 100, Santa Ana. 'The Man Who Wasn't There' (2001), 7 p.m. Saturday. Los Feliz 3, 1822 N. Vermont Ave. 'Killing Them Softly' (2012), 10 p.m. Saturday. Los Feliz 3 Hear Now Music Festival: Voices Raised The second of three shows devoted to new work by contemporary Los Angeles composers features a program of instrumental chamber music with Lyris Quartet and Brightwork Ensemble; the festival concludes with vocal chamber music on May 18.5 p.m. 2220 Arts + Archives, 2200 Beverly Blvd. Lost Cellphone Weekend Film noir-ish musical comedy written and composed by Stephen Gilbane about a man with an intense social media problem.2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. April 18, 19, 25 and 26; 2 p.m. April 27. Write Act Repertory at the Brickhouse Theatre, 10950 Peach Grove St., Hollywood. The Last Play by Rickérby Hinds In the Afro Latino playwright's meta comedy, characters from his previous works throw his artistic process into chaos as he attempts to write a new play that stays true to the many aspects of May 25. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. What Is War A collaborative performance created by Eiko Otake and Wen Hui, who share their personal memories related to war, current and historic, through movement and projected video.8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. Ashley Lee recently sat down for a Q&A with Georgia-born, North Hollywood-based playwright Keiko Green to discuss her approach to theater in advance of the world-premiere run of her play 'You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!' at South Coast Repertory. Lee described the play as 'an ambitious exploration of grief, climate change and individual significance, whether one is still on Earth or otherwise.' L.A.-based conceptual artist David Horvitz's latest project, 7th Ave Garden, is on a vacant lot in Arlington Heights, just off Washington Boulevard. There, in the place of a house that burned down, Horvitz has created a landscape that, according to Times contributor Marissa Gluck, serves as a 'living ecological lab and art project.' The spot plays host to exhibitions, poetry readings and performances. But it might not be around for much longer. Read why in this dispatch about the novel art endeavor. When Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency made sweeping cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, downtown L.A.'s Japanese American National Museum lost a $175,000 grant for the museum's Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops. The museum — along with others across the country — is worried that more cuts are coming. JANM may lose up to $1.5 million in already approved federal funding, and it's looking for ways to fight back. The California Science Center this week unveiled three site-specific murals commissioned for the museum's upcoming immersive exhibition, 'Game On! Science, Sports & Play,' which highlights the dynamism of the body in motion. The free show, which begins May 15, offers 'hands-on activities and virtual guidance from a diverse team of well-loved Los Angeles-based mentor athletes,' according to a news release. Guests are encouraged to participate in activities related to baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, yoga and dance. The large-scale murals, the first commissioned by the Science Center for an exhibition, were created by artists chosen for their connections to L.A.: Moses X. Ball made a piece titled 'Motivation in Motion' that's 23 feet by 18 feet; Laci Jordan's 'For the Love of the Game' is 48 feet by 16 feet; and Gustavo Zermeño Jr.'s 'It's Time for Dodger Baseball' spans 60 feet and is 18 feet tall. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino is rebranding itself to — quite simply — the Huntington. The move reflects what legions of visitors have long called their favored refuge from L.A.'s urban hustle, although a news release announcing the move calls it 'the first comprehensive branding initiative in the institution's 100-year history.' The change is apparent in updated signs and merchandise, as well as on the website. The Broad officially broke ground this week on its major expansion downtown, set to be completed in 2028. Mayor Karen Bass was on hand for the ceremony, alongside the museum's Founding Director and President Joanne Heyler and co-Founder Edythe L. Broad. The expansion will increase gallery space by 70%. — Jessica Gelt Remember that 1984 episode of 'Press Your Luck' with the guy who won more than $110,000?
Boston Globe
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
William Finn, Tony recipient for ‘Falsettos,' is dead at 73
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'In the pantheon of great composer-lyricists, Bill was idiosyncratically himself — there was nobody who sounded like him,' said André Bishop, the producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. He presented seven of Mr. Finn's shows, starting at the famed Playwrights Horizons in the late 1970s and continuing at Lincoln Center. Advertisement 'He became known as this witty wordsmith who wrote lots of complicated songs dealing with things people didn't deal with in song in those days,' Bishop added, 'but what he really had was this huge heart — his shows are popular because his talent was beautiful and accessible and warm and heartfelt.' Mr. Finn played varying roles across his career, as a composer, a lyricist, and sometime librettist. His songs often feature 'a wordy introspective urbanity,' as Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times in 2003. In 'A New Brain,' Mr. Finn seemed to distill his passion for the art form, writing, 'Heart and music keep us all alive.' Advertisement 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,' for which he wrote the music and lyrics, arrived on Broadway in 2005 (the cast included Jesse Tyler Ferguson), directed by James Lapine, a frequent collaborator with Mr. Finn. The show, about a group of awkward adolescents competing in a spelling bee, ran for nearly three years on Broadway and has been wildly successful: Over the last 16 years, it has been produced more than 7,000 times in professional, community, and school settings, according to Drew Cohen, CEO of Music Theater International, which licenses it. Mr. Finn loved the Berkshires and had a long relationship with the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield,which presented the premiere of 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' in a high school cafeteria in the summer of 2004. Mr. Finn, who for years had a home in Pittsfield, went on to establish a musical theater lab at Barrington Stage to wrestle the work of young writers into shape. 'I'm good at sniffing talent out,'' he told critic Don Aucoin of The Boston Globe in 2016. Mr. Finn founded the Barrington Stage Company's Musical Theatre Lab. Steven G. Smith Under the supervision of Mr. Finn and Julianne Boyd, then the theater's artistic director, the lab spawned at least a dozen world premiere productions. 'I always enjoy things that are dirty, rather than finished,'' Mr. Finn told the Globe. 'What's interesting is seeing the dirty beginnings of a real talent. I love everyone's early voice. It's a person screaming to be heard.'' Advertisement He remained an associate artist at Barrington Stage until his death, and in 2023 the theater presented a well-received revival of 'A New Brain.' 'Bill was brilliant, quirky, compassionate and very funny, and he understood the truth of people — the true emotions that led them to do what they were doing,' said Boyd, who for years lived across the street from Finn in Pittsfield. For years, Boyd said, Mr. Finn was the host of a Labor Day weekend celebration of 'songs by ridiculously talented composers and lyricists you probably don't know but should.' Mr. Finn also had a long affiliation with New York University, where he was an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate musical theater writing program from 1999 to 2019. Even as he slowed down in recent years, he continued to work. He had been developing a song cycle about the pandemic, called 'Once Every Hundred Years,' Salvadore said. William Alan Finn was born Feb. 28, 1952, in Boston and raised in Natick. His father, Jason Finn, worked for a paper products company; his mother, Barbara (Cohen) Finn, had a variety of jobs and at one point owned a consignment store. A lifelong theater lover, Mr. Finn claimed to have written his first play as a Hebrew School project. 'I have no idea what it was about,' he told Tablet, a Jewish magazine. '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?' He attended Natick High and then Williams College, where he wrote three musicals. He graduated from Williams in 1974 with majors in English and American civilization. The college gave him its Bicentennial Medal for achievement in 1998, an honorary degree in 2006, and its Kellogg Award in 2009. Last year, at his 50th college reunion, his final song cycle was performed there. Advertisement After graduating from Williams and a brief detour to California, he moved to New York, where over several years he wrote a trio of musicals about a character named Marvin who leaves his wife for a man and ultimately reconciles with both his sexuality and his family: 'In Trousers' (1979), 'March of the Falsettos' (1981) and 'Falsettoland' (1990). All three were staged at Playwrights Horizons. 'In Trousers' was panned by Richard Eder of the Times ('A bare germ of an idea,' he wrote), but 'March of the Falsettos' scored a rave from the newspaper's Frank Rich ('The show is only a few bars old before one feels the unmistakable, revivifying charge of pure talent'), and Mr. Finn was on his way. 'March of the Falsettos' and 'Falsettoland' were ultimately combined into one show, 'Falsettos,' which opened on Broadway in 1992 ('Exhilarating and heartbreaking,' Rich declared). The show won two Tony Awards, for Mr. Finn's scores and for its book, which he wrote with Lapine. The show was revised and revived on Broadway in 2016. 'Falsettos,' which ends with the death of a main character, was followed by even more challenging work, including 'A New Brain' (1998), which is set primarily in a hospital, and a song cycle called 'Elegies' (2003), which Mr. Finn wrote about lost loved ones, prompted by the terrorist attacks of 2001. 'As his work has grown graver, the audience for it has contracted,' Jesse Green wrote in the Times in 2005. Advertisement But that was followed by 'Spelling Bee,' which transferred quickly from Barrington Stage to an off-Broadway run at Second Stage, and then to Broadway. That show was life-changing for Mr. Finn, 'success on a different magnitude,' he told The Charlotte Observer in 2006, adding, 'I kind of walk around smiling like a drunken idiot.' Jesse Tyler Ferguson starred in 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee' in Manhattan in 2005. SARA KRULWICH/NYT Mr. Finn had a variety of other projects over the years, including a musical adaptation of the 2006 film 'Little Miss Sunshine,' which had a run Off Broadway in 2013, and a musical adaptation of the George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber play 'The Royal Family,' called 'The Royal Family of Broadway,' which had a run at Barrington Stage in 2018. In addition to Salvadore, his partner of 45 years, he leaves a sister, Nancy Davis; and a brother, Michael. 'Bill was totally original — sui generis,' Lapine said in an interview Tuesday. 'Songs just poured out of him, always in his voice and always very personal.' This article originally appeared in
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Loose Screws, Hot Flames and Infinite Joy of William Finn
When I met William Finn in 2005, at work on 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,' he was seated in his office in front of what looked like a trash heap but might have been a desk. On a couch nearby, one of his collaborators sank slowly beneath a rising tide of detritus; when she spoke, Finn kept overwhelming her too. Bearlike and blustery, garrulous and appetitive, he grabbed at every idea floating around the room, just as he grabbed at insane rhymes and jangly melodies in writing his sometimes hilarious, sometimes haunting (sometimes both) songs. The opportunistic lyrics were what first attracted me. By the time of 'Spelling Bee,' Finn, who died Monday at the age of 73, had already made a name for himself with the 'Falsettos' trilogy, his take on a family (and thus a society) shattered by disease and disaffection in the early years of AIDS. Yet despite the sadness of that story (the book is by Finn and James Lapine), the melodies are mostly jaunty and the words outrageously playful. In the show's opening number he rhymes 'four Jews' with 'loose screws.' As his later work kept digging deeper into dark themes, the rhymes got wilder, as if he were very hungry, and there was just one shrimp puff left on a plate at the other side of a party. In 'A New Brain,' a show about his own near-death experience from a stroke in 1992, it was not unusual for him to match chewy words like 'Thackeray' and 'whackery,' even though they made little sense together. What they made instead was a tickling kind of Gertrude Stein spark, followed by an existential whack. Your ear was delighted while your brain was befuddled, which was perhaps the point because, he seemed to ask, does anything in the world make sense? Listen to a selection of Finn's songs on Spotify: Forcing apparently incompatible things into messy proximity, if not alignment, was a Finn hallmark, and, I eventually came to think, his signal virtue. Almost all the liaisons in 'Falsettos' — a nebbish and an Adonis, an angry wife and her shrink — are misalliances, and yet through suffering and, yes, bitching, they form a kind of family in defiance of fate. Fate interested Finn deeply; he loved the way the teenage competitors in 'Spelling Bee' keep drawing words that showcase their weaknesses, like 'lugubrious' for the boy with 'a rare mucus disorder' and 'cystitis' for the lisper. 'It's like 'Survivor' for nerds,' he told me. He would know. Even his non-narrative revues and song cycles — especially the exquisite 'Elegies' — are about outcasts and sufferers who prevail while they can. They don't mope, they flame. At a baseball game, Marvin, the 'Falsettos' nebbish, tells Whizzer, his unfaithful lover, to 'sit in front of me / I wanna see the bald spot!' because 'it's the only physical imperfection that you've got.' In 'A New Brain,' the mother, angry at her son for being sick and gay, cleans his apartment by throwing away all his books. (Hence: Thackeray / whackery.) It is only after acknowledging and withstanding awfulness — shame, grief, mortality — that Finn permits a glimpse of happiness. In the title song of the revue 'Infinite Joy' he describes that emotion with the words 'Goodness is rewarded / Hope is guaranteed / Laughter builds strong bones.' Near the end of 'A New Brain,' he summarizes what we've just seen as 'Stories of coping / Of hope against hoping,' before having his stand-in, a composer who has been through the wringer, sing, 'I have so much spring within me.' It's a pun — the character originally wrote that song for a frog on a kiddie show. That's William Finn all over: turning a joke, like the one played on all of us, into joy. I'm not sure the phrase makes sense, but it's perfect anyway: He was hope against hoping.
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
William Finn, Tony Winner for ‘Falsettos,' Is Dead at 73
William Finn, a witty, cerebral and psychologically perceptive musical theater writer who won two Tony Awards for 'Falsettos' and had an enduringly popular hit with 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,' died on Monday in Bennington, Vt. He was 73. His longtime partner, Arthur Salvadore, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pulmonary fibrosis, following years in which Mr. Finn had contended with neurological issues. He had homes in Williamstown, Mass., and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Mr. Finn was widely admired for his clever, complex lyrics and for the poignant honesty with which he explored character. He was gay and Jewish, and some of his most significant work concerned those communities; in the 1990s, with 'Falsettos,' he was among the first artists to musicalize the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, and his musical 'A New Brain' was inspired by his own life-threatening experience with an arteriovenous malformation. 'In the pantheon of great composer-lyricists, Bill was idiosyncratically himself — there was nobody who sounded like him,' said André Bishop, the producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. He presented seven of Mr. Finn's shows, starting at Playwrights Horizons in the late 1970s and continuing at Lincoln Center. 'He became known as this witty wordsmith who wrote lots of complicated songs dealing with things people didn't deal with in song in those days,' Mr. Bishop added, 'but what he really had was this huge heart — his shows are popular because his talent was beautiful and accessible and warm and heartfelt.' Mr. Finn played varying roles across his career, as a composer, a lyricist and sometime librettist. His songs often feature 'a wordy introspective urbanity,' as Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times in 2003. In 'A New Brain,' Mr. Finn seemed to distill his passion for the art form, writing, 'Heart and music keep us all alive.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
