William Finn was a total original. He was tall and imposing, handsome yet impish, with a big head of hair and a beard. His eyes darted around any room he entered like pinballs—observant, yet a little skittish.
Bill Finn looked like a pirate set to overtake The Good Ship Lollipop.
You know him as the brilliant Tony Award-winning composer and book writer of beloved musicals including: In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, Romance in Hard Times, A New Brain and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, among others. Some knew him as teacher, brother, uncle, cousin and friend, but anyone that experienced his brilliance in the theater became diehard fans. Everything Bill wrote was deeply personal, and that’s one of the reasons his work in the theater resonated. He elevated the autobiographical story to include the world.
Bill was a professor at NYU, having also taught at his alma mater Williams College. He took his role as Rabbi of Musical Theater Composition seriously. As it goes, he changed the lives for the better of many students, and encouraged their emotional, honest storytelling. On June 17th, in New York City, in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, his life and work was celebrated.
Bill was similar to the artist Monet who painted the water lilies he saw floating in the pond out back through his kitchen window in Giverny. Monet never had to go far to find his subjects, and the same was true for Bill Finn. Bill, like Monet, built worlds from all he saw through his window. There isn’t another creator in American musical theater who used his own heart’s desire as the theme of his work to such great success. You had a feeling that whatever he shared with the audience had happened to him—and Bill in turn wanted it to happen to us, or at the very least, to feel.
Bill passed at the age of 73, too short a time on this planet for such huge a talent. His brilliance, world view, musical mastery, quirks, fabulous sense of humor and raging impatience were on display at the memorial. As great artists, the best in the American theater, took the stage, lovingly and with great emotion, told the story of Bill Finn in testimony and song. It is rare to go to a memorial where the person who had lived is celebrated with such exacting truth—but I imagine that has a lot to do with Bill’s musical and storytelling ability—his craft. Bill Finn was capable of marrying joy and pain and great longing in a simple phrase. His ability to make us laugh was always peeking around the corner—the absurdity of life was at the heart of his work, while the simple pleasures of living were celebrated with gusto.
I was friends with Bill through Mary Testa (Broadway star and my beloved friend). Mary met Bill when she was 19—she was here to make it in American theater and Bill was here to write for it. Theater people are family—they move together through the world on a mission. They are often as close as blood relatives, so there is deep love, feuds, fights over money, the disappointment of unmet expectations and pole vaulting highs. Great composer/writers and actors collaborate to move the audience emotionally. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
Bill Finn was a family man—he had beloved parents, a brother and a sister that adored him, and his family embraced his life partner Arthur. His nephew, his doppelgänger, spoke with emotion, as did Bill’s brother. You got an honest interpretation of what it was like to grow up with prodigy Bill. The Finns are a loving family who encouraged one another. Maybe Bill’s vision and relentless pursuit of truth and beauty had a lot to do with the way he was raised. Bill Finn was loved.
Bill Finn and his partner Arthur were regulars at the parties celebrating Mary Testa’s three Tony nominations—and you could call them party tentpoles—warm and gracious, they yakked with party guests. Well, Arthur yakked—Bill would look for food that wasn’t vegan. The array of talent that came out to celebrate Bill was glorious. Theater artists, musicians, actors, musical arrangers, pianists, directors, producers and aesthetes—everyone had a story, and everyone had a song.
Look at the pantheon of greats who spoke, played and sang at the memorial. The great theater artists of the moment flooded the stage to honor Bill. I don’t think I could go anywhere in the world in one room and hear Lillias White, Mary Testa, Jonathan Groff, Norm Lewis, Jose Llana, Christian Borle, Stephen Bogardus, Heather MacRae, Carolee Carmello, Chip Zien, Anne Nathan, Jenni Barber, Sally Wilfert, Celia Keenan-Bolger, James Monroe Iglehart, Jennifer Simard, and Lisa Howard bear witness to Finn’s canon—while Michael Starobin, Carmel Dean, Vadim Feichtner, Ted Sperling and Danny Ursetti accompanied these great actors.
Bill’s life partner of 45 years is an exceptional human being. Arthur Salvadore is one of those long, lean, gorgeous men that you see across a crowded room—and whether you’re gay or straight, you swoon. But getting to know him also revealed a decent man of character who possessed depth, humor and compassion—all of which a man needed to possess in order to have lived successfully with Bill Finn. I always had the sense that Arthur got a kick out of Bill. You would also observe the deep reverence that Arthur had for Bill’s talent. Arthur rooted for Bill, and in the theater, the artist’s need to be understood is a bottomless vat that no great review, adulation and box office profit can ever fill. Artists need support, and usually and hopefully, their life partner understands the depth of that need. I believe Arthur understood it, and made a life that made Bill’s happiness possible. Arthur and Bill together were complete- enough in a world where nothing is ever enough. Arthur understood Bill, and one of the ways we know this for sure is that they were together for more than half their lives. I can’t imagine Bill settling for less. Arthur and Bill were true loves.
At the end of this glorious memorial, I went out in the hallway to wait for Mary. We were heading out to see the dimming of the lights in Bill’s honor. There was time. I realized that Mary wasn’t coming out anytime soon, so I went back inside the theater. I stood in the last row at the top of the Mitzi Newhouse and watched the participants in the memorial catch up with one another on the stage. It was a raucous and tender reunion. They were loud, there was a lot of laughter. There was such camaraderie on the stage, it filled me with the same joy I felt during the memorial.
Actors are glorious people. I have found their talent, no matter how magnificent, is often the least of their gifts. Actors have a largesse and empathy that the world needs. The great storytellers never drop the thread of the narrative that begins with their first role, through the current one they are tackling. Actors celebrate each other and are truly happy to reconnect when work has taken them far from one another. Observing this reunion also filled me with hope.
Actors are the sum total of all the parts they have played and the emotions they have shared with the audience. It’s a club that anyone with a heart would want to join. Never mind the talent, there is something much deeper going on here—something that makes us all better. It’s the same stuff that Bill Finn wrote about—family, love, life and work. The themes Bill returned to time and again and then put on their feet in music and storytelling will stand the test of time. Bill dramatized the life lived with a kind of awe that makes the ordinary soar. How lucky we are to have known him.
Read more about Bill Finn in Berkshire Magazine.
Join Adriana on tour with her new novel, The View from Lake Como (July 8th). Event info on adrianatrigiani.com.
What a lovely tribute, and the talent that performed at the memorial is just stunning. He must have meant so much to so many people. I’m sorry for your and Mary’s loss.