From top, William Finn and Julianne Boyd, then Artistic Director at Barrington Stage Company( BSC), at the 2012 BSC Gala.( Kevin Sprague) Finn with longtime collaboratorJames Lapine.( James Lapine) Opposite page, from top, the original cast members from the 1979 premiere of In Trousers: Alison Fraser, Joanna Green, Mary Testa, and Chip Zien.( Susan Cook) The showbill from March of the Falsettos and Stephen Bogardus and Michael Rupert in March of the Falsettos.( Susan Cook) The cast of Falsettoland.( Gerry Goodstein) by Ridiculously Talented Composers and Lyricists You Probably Don’ t Know But Should,” a Labor Day weekend concert series that became a hallmark of Barrington’ s Musical Theatre Lab for a number of years. The collaboration between Finn and Boyd in creating a space where musicals were developed( and sometimes premiered) was foundational to the theater that was still evolving.
In its first 11 years, Barrington Stage Company( BSC) made due with various performance spaces until it found a permanent home. BSC operated from rented space at the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, where the auditorium was used as their Mainstage space and two cafeterias as makeshift theaters.( Finn’ s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which became a runaway hit on Broadway and garnered two Tony ® Awards, premiered in one of them.) Finn’ s Elegies: A Song Cycle was staged in 2005 at the Mahaiwe theater in Great Barrington, which followed its Lincoln Center production in 2003.
BSC has, of course, grown since then. In July 2005, the theater company purchased a 1912 vaudeville theater in downtown Pittsfield, which became the 520-seat, state-of-the art Boyd-Quinson Stage. In 2012, the company acquired the former V. F. W. building in Pittsfield, three blocks from the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. The building, now called the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, includes the 136-seat St. Germain Stage and Mr. Finn’ s Cabaret, a 99-seat cabaret space in the lower level of the building.
In researching this article, everyone I spoke to who knew Finn had many stories to tell— about his big heart, his sense of humor, his jaggedness and blatant honesty that were singularly Finn. I met him a few times through the years in social settings and last caught a glimpse of him at the opening of the revival of A New Brain in 2023 at Barrington Stage, a co-production with Williamstown Theatre Festival. Paul called him out on opening night. The audience was stunned to see that Finn was sitting amongst them and was brought to their feet in applause. It was to be the last stag-
44 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE July 2025