William Alan Finn (born February 28, 1952) is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Book, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).Finn was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He is Jewish, raised in conservative Judaism, and grew up in Natick, Massachusetts, with his parents and siblings, Michael and Nancy. He attended the Temple Israel in Natick, where his Rabbi was Harold Kushner.