[continued from previous message]   
      
   “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.   
      
   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.”   
      
   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 Mr. Salvadore, his partner of 45 years, he is survived by   
   a sister, Nancy Davis; a brother, Michael; and many nieces, nephews,   
   grandnieces and grandnephews.   
      
   “Bill was totally original — sui generis,” Mr. Lapine said in an   
   interview on Tuesday.  “Songs just poured out of him, always in his   
   voice and always very personal.”   
      
   Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.   
      
   © 2025 The New York Times Company   
      
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