what ' s our opening gonna be?’ or‘ How do we get to here from there?’ It was kind of a peculiar way to work, but for us, it was kind of great. I ' m more visual than Bill. I had to see structure. Particularly with March of the Falsettos, we’ d get to a point where we would say,‘ That person can ' t sing another song and another song and another song,’ so we had to start figuring out how to get the rhythm of the show with the characters. And then we would talk about what so-and-so would sing about, or how would they get this information. It was kind of freewheeling like that. Sometimes, I would just stage something without anything, and sometimes he would write music with no lyrics, or dummy lyrics, and he would say to me,‘ Well, what are they going to sing about?’ And then I would rattle off ten ideas, and he ' d go off and choose five of them, or make one or two of his own. That ' s why he liked working with me, because he said I was never dry. I always had an idea.”
Finn liked musicals that are sung through, like the“ Marvin Trilogy” and A New Brain.
“ Bill sort of vomited out the stuff, and then he cleaned up the messes, which is how I always thought about it,” says Lapine.“ I totally get that …. You go on instinct and then put it down.” Although Finn and Sondheim were known to have very different creative processes, both were committed to working with younger people and inspiring them. Bill was untempered by whatever came flying out of his head and mouth. Sondheim was more classically trained in both lyrics and music. Finn didn’ t write down the music he created; he played music, and then it was written down for him.“ Every little dotted dot was on the sheet music before Stephen even let you hear it,” says Lapine, who would bounce back and forth between projects with Finn and Sondheim. He equally enjoyed working with both theater giants.“ Their methodology was so different, but their imaginations were so, I guess you would say, limitless.”
André Bishop
After 33 years as Artistic Director and Producing Artistic Director of Lincoln Center
Theater, André Bishop is retiring on June 30, 2025. He has produced over 80 Broadway plays and musicals and has won numerous Tony ® Awards. When I talked with him, he was beginning to plan a private gathering on June 17 in memory of William Finn, working together with Lapine; theater and film producer David Stone; and Ira Weitzman, Mindich Musical Theatre Producer at Lincoln Center Theater. Fittingly, it was to be the last event Bishop organized at Lincoln Center.
Bishop recounted his first meeting with Finn in late 1977: Somebody called and told him about Finn, who then invited Bishop to a presentation of his work in his apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. Bishop explained that Finn was quite persuasive on the phone, so he went to the performance. It started very late at night.( Finn was waiting for people to show up.) Chairs were set up in the living room, as if it were a small theater. Finn’ s mother served scrambled eggs to all the guests. And that was Bishop’ s introduction to In Trousers.
“ Bill was singing in it, as well,” recalls Bishop, who was the Artistic Director
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