Armistead Maupin's Blog, page 37

News from the ACT

Limited-edition posters now available!

Tale Chaser exclusive! Be the first to grab this collector's item, featuring the vibrant artwork from the world premiere production. Available for a limited time only.

Get Friendly with Tales on Facebook

Connect with thousands of other fans on our Tales of the City page, where you can swap stories about your own Tales experiences—and discuss when you're coming to see the show!

Fan the man who started it all

While you're on Facebook, become a fan of Armistead Maupin, the legendary author who wrote the best-selling novels that inspired the musical. Pick up his latest Tales of the City novel, Mary Ann in Autumn, to follow the continuing adventures of these iconic characters, and check out his schedule of upcoming events and appearances to see him in person!

The Scissor Sisters go Gaga for Glee!

The musical masterminds behind Tales are on the road and taking the world by storm—in excellent company. Don't miss their March 22 performance featuring Lady Gaga at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. Catch them on tour at a venue near you, and join actor Chris Colfer's campaign to get them a guest spot on the award-winning TV show Glee.


Get your tickets!  Save big with a group

Tickets are selling quickly. Order online or call 415.749.2228 today! Groups of 15 or more save up to 50% off regular prices. For details, call 415.439.2473.

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Go online to go behind the scenes at A.C.T.! Check out savvy backstage perspectives on our blog, get the scoop on acting classes in our award-winning conservatory, and buy tickets to performances—on the mainstage and beyond.

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An Evening with Armistead Maupin

Everything I've ever written is based on something in my life.

Armistead Maupin, best-selling author of the Tales of the City novels, is back with the latest story in the series. Mary Ann in Autumn continues his exploration of 'alternative' lifestyles in the city by the bay.

The popular series broke new ground with its open reflection of San Francisco's gay community in the 70s and 80s as well as its frank discussion of AIDS. Maupin's willingness to broach this subject, at a time when many wouldn't, has ensured his place in literary history.

Audiences can hear him read aloud from his latest novel before watching him take part in a lively interview with Julie McCrossin. Fans will then have the opportunity to question him about his life and work. As a best-selling author, social commentator, gay soldier in Vietnam, and advocate of homosexual rights, Maupin has led a fascinating life which has earned him a place as a literary icon.

"My hope is that we're close to the time that homophobia takes on the status of racism today — normal, mainstream people don't accept it." Armistead Maupin

"Tales, the phenomenon that started in 1976 has evolved into a pop cultural phenomenon that has come to define a San Francisco era and ethos." Los Angeles Times

Part of the 2011 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

To find out more click here

http://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/9550-an-evening-with-armistead-maupin

"Tales Of The City" Musical Poster

The poster for the "Tales of the City" Musical has been unleashed!

World Premiere

May 19–June 19, 2011

Libretto by Jeff Whitty
Music and lyrics by Jake Shears and John Garden
Based on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and More Tales of the City
Directed by Jason Moore

Become a "Tale Chaser" at the ACT Website

Aron Kincaid dies at 70; actor appeared in 1960s 'beach' movies

(Note from Armistead Maupin's Facebook page:  Aron and I became friends in the 70's when he was modeling in S.F. He was charming, witty, and hugely supportive of my work. Yes, his real name was Norman Neale Williams -- and he was tickled that I'd named my most deplorable villain after him. The last time we talked he joked about getting ready for the Motion Picture Home, where ...he could hang out with all the old stars. Damn it, Aron, I needed more of you.)



The Los Angeles native appeared in 'The Girls on the Beach' and 'The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.' He later had careers as a model and an artist.

January 08, 2011
By Dennis McLellan
Los Angeles Times

Aron Kincaid, an actor who appeared in 1960s "beach" movies such as "The Girls on the Beach" and "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" and later had careers as a model and an artist, has died. He was 70.

Kincaid, who lived in Beverly Hills, died of heart-related complications Thursday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, said his longtime friend Rodney Kemerer.

The tall and handsome Kincaid was a UCLA student when he was spotted in a Los Angeles stage production by a casting agent and signed to a contract with Universal.

That led to a regular role in the final season of the sitcom "Bachelor Father" in 1962 — as Warren Dawson, the junior partner of John Forsythe's Hollywood attorney Bentley Gregg. Dawson becomes engaged to Gregg's niece, Kelly, played by Noreen Corcoran.

Kincaid later appeared with Corcoran in the 1965 comedy "The Girls on the Beach" and had roles in "Beach Ball" and "Ski Party," and made what was billed as a "guest appearance" in "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" — as well as appearing in "The Happiest Millionaire, "The Proud and the Damned" and other movies.

Kincaid, who also made guest appearances on series such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Get Smart," moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s and launched a successful career as a model.

He also had a 20-year voice-over career in hundreds of commercials and did voice work on animated TV series such as "Smurfs," "Jonny Quest" and "The Transformers."

He was born Norman Neale Williams II in Los Angeles on June 15, 1940. His father, a second lieutenant in the Army Air Forces, died during World War II. His mother remarried and moved to Oakland, where Kincaid graduated from high school.

After graduating from UCLA in 1962, he enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserve.

As an artist, Kincaid used the name N.N. Williams II. He sold his landscapes and seascapes through galleries in Laguna Beach.

He had no immediate survivors.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/08/local/la-me-aron-kincaid-20110108

ACT honors Armistead Maupin's 'Tales of the City'

Catherine Bigelow
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Super supporters of American Conservatory Theater were center stage, literally, Saturday at the Geary Theater during the Producers' Circle Dinner.

The dinner - co-chaired by Frannie Fleishhacker and Deedee McMurty, and starring author Armistead Maupin, devilish and dapper in matching kilts with his husband, Christopher Turner - was held on the theater's floorboards.

"ACT is so magical. A few years ago we decided this dinner must reflect that," McMurty said. "So we set the tables onstage, where all the action happens."

Among the 110 guests: ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff; Executive Director Ellen Richard; board Chairwoman Nancy Livingston; board President Rusty Rueff; board member Priscilla Geeslin; Chairman Emeritus Alan Stein; MFA student Richardson Jones; and Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, who directs ACT's West Coast premiere of "Clybourne Park" on Jan 20.

The evening also celebrated ACT's groundbreaking musical production of Maupin's beloved "Tales of the City," starring Betty Buckley as Mrs. Madrigal, which will ignite the theater's 2011 opening-night gala on June 1.

Lucky guests not only enjoyed a memorable, '70s-inspired McCall Associates meal (Crab Louis, lamb chop Grand Veneur, Blums'-inspired Coffee Cake Crunch), they also received signed copies of Maupin's latest "Tales" novel, "Mary Ann in Autumn."

"Reading 'Tales' is what made me want to move to San Francisco," Perloff said. "These stories are our stories, nurtured in this city's neighborhoods and spanning generations."

The collaboration between Maupin and ACT began in the mid-'90s when Olympia Dukakis (who played Mrs. Madrigal in the televised "Tales" miniseries), introduced Perloff and the author.

"Carey's had her eye on this prize for a long time," Maupin joked.

But he had his own ACT tale, too. Maupin recalled that as a lowly mail boy in one of the city's old ad agencies along Pacific Avenue, he learned of a job opening in the theater's promotion department.

"Of course, back then," Maupin said with a laugh, "I couldn't even get my foot in the door."

Perloff paid tribute to the theater's deep-pocketed donors who contributed to last year's stellar season, including a $31 million capital endowment (chaired by Livingston) and the dazzling premiere of the "Tosca Project" (en route to Canada in the fall).

Up next? The director is at work creating a Mid-Market campus for the theater.

Post-dinner, ACT artists Mary Birdsong and Manoel Felciano sang stellar "Tales" sneak previews as Maupin and Perloff engaged in a dynamic chat on the author's colorful career.

In continuing the "Tales" characters, Maupin said he felt blessed to tell the world a story for the past 34 years. But, he noted, some recent reports on "Mary Ann" shorthand the saga as a treatise on the taboo topic of gay aging.

"I look at aging as a supreme privilege," he said. "Because there are so many people no longer here who I wish I could have brought along on this journey."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/11/DDHI1H6TIK.DTL&feed=rss.entertainment

Tweet this: Maupin's coming

Tweet this: Maupin's coming

January 10, 2011 - 4:47PM

America's chronicler of gay life, Armistead Maupin, keeps a finger on the pulse while setting his sights on Sydney.

Armistead Maupin, famed as a chronicler of gay life and the first novelist to tackle AIDS, is heading to Australia. He will read from his latest book at the Opera House on March 3.

The author of the best-selling Tales of the City novels extends his famed three-decades-long series with an eighth instalment - Mary Ann in Autumn. The story follows Mary Ann Singleton as she finds herself back in the city of her youth at 57, taking refuge in the backyard cottage of her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gay gardener with a younger husband. As she re-engages with her past (with the help of Facebook, naturally), Mary Ann finds certain things come back to haunt her.

Maupin, who has been busy Tweeting about his impending visit (sending love to his followers in washed-out Queensland and joking about finally knowing what a map of Tassie is), will read from the new novel in the Concert Hall before chatting to journalist Julie McCrossin and taking questions from the audience. His appearance is part of the 2011 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras program.

His iconic novels grew out of a newspaper serial published in the San Francisco Chronicle from 1976. At the time it broke new ground with its candid insights into San Francisco's gay community as well as its frank discussion of AIDS. Maupin's willingness to broach the subject at a time when many wouldn't ensured his place in literary history. He also had the advantage of having his work published soon after writing, allowing him to tap into the zeitgeist and deal with issues in a timely way.

His first three Tales novels became even more widely known when they were turned into three mini-series starring Olympia Dukakis as the eccentric dope-growing landlady Anna Madrigal and Laura Linney (to whom his new book is dedicated) as Mary Ann. His novel The Night Listener also became a film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette.

As an author, social commentator, gay soldier in Vietnam and advocate of homosexual rights, Maupin has led a fascinating life. Today, between attending writers' festivals, readings and signings around the world, he lives in San Francisco with his husband Christopher Turner.

Maupin has also embraced the role of international spokesperson for gay rights. In his second novel More Tales of the City, Michael Tolliver (the most autobiographical of Maupin's characters) writes a coming-out letter to his mother. Maupin's words have since been used as a template by other people struggling to reveal their true selves.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/sydney-opera-house/tweet-this-maupins-coming-20110110-19k8b.html

Armistead Maupin's sell-out UK tour

Armistead Maupin delighted fans when he toured the UK to publicise Mary Ann in Autumn, published in the UK by Doubleday in November.

The tour included a reading and signing in London, an appearance at the Cambridge Wordfest, and visits to bookshops in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Nottingham.

The author of the hugely popular Tales of the City series, of which Mary Ann in Autumn is the eighth instalment, who was greeted by sold-out audiences, also found time to appear on The Review Show on BBC2.

http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/news.aspx?news=892

Armistead Maupin: Barbary Lane, barbarism and the Vatican

As Armistead Maupin revisits the world of Tales of the City, he tells Eva Wiseman why the pope is the enemy of all he holds dear

Eva Wiseman
The Observer, Sunday 19 December 2010

Armistead Maupin speaks like he writes, in slow short sentences that trickle from beneath his white moustache like honey on the turn: sweet but sharp. When he talks about the things that anger him – the pope, for instance, or Republicanism – his pitch doesn't rise, his voice doesn't quicken. In fact, it's when discussing what he perceives as the wrongs of the world that Maupin, chronicler of gay life and the first novelist to tackle Aids, seems most at ease.

Maupin's 10 novels all linger on themes of identity, sexuality, loss and the logical ("as opposed to biological") family. He is, of course, most famous for his Tales of the City, which were first serialised in a San Francisco newspaper in the 1970s, growing into six volumes over the next 10 years. A mini-series (starring Laura Linney as token straight Mary Ann) was made in 1993, and a seventh book appeared 18 years later, in 2007. This month an eighth volume – Mary Ann in Autumn – is published. It's a return to the heartbreaking and rickety world of Barbary Lane (or thereabouts) and a return, the critics are saying, to his 1970s best.

While Maupin's books have always featured soapy storylines – secret identities, strange religious sects, amnesia – these bubble in a basin of such delicate writing and beautifully flawed characters that for his many readers (one of whom, upon discovering his name was an anagram for "Is a man I dreamt up", wrote to him questioning his very existence) his novels are more like bibles. At a reading recently, a fan told him that when her best friend died, he'd been buried with Maupin's books.

Despite its ties to the 1970s and 1980s, the legacy of Tales of the City continues to grow. The day we meet, the pope has condoned condom use for the prevention of sexually transmitted disease. I ask Maupin how he feels about this inching forward of morals, and he scoffs. "The pope's barbarism is so enormous that all he could do is quit to impress me at this point, so deeply mired in hypocrisy, in bad thinking. I have very little patience for organised religion," he says, "which is mostly dedicated to demonising homosexuality. That shows you right there how little they know about the nature of love, and true spirituality."

Maupin (one-time lover of Rock Hudson, who appears in his novels as closeted film star ____ ___) got married in 2007 to Christopher Turner, the editor of a website he'd been browsing, Daddyhunt.com. At their wedding Laura Linney, to whom his new book is dedicated, read a poem –"The Bliss of With" – and at her wedding some months later, Maupin returned the favour. "The last line is 'You are my undoing and my altogether'," he says. "It's about the way someone takes you apart then puts you back together again. It was the loveliest way for Laura and me to be bonded for ever."

"For ever" is a theme he returns to often. Despite having served in Vietnam, Maupin's war, he says, has been with Aids. "I'm distressed to realise that now there are gay men who've lost their sense of self-worth to the degree that they experience a sense of relief when they're infected," he says, "because they think there's nothing else left to worry about. But of course that's really when the worrying starts." The worry, he says, of a "for ever" on medication. "People my age end up looking 90 after a lifetime on meds. But at least it is a lifetime now, if not an eternity".

Maupin has fallen happily into the role of international spokesperson for gay rights, but, at 66, is unafraid to veer endearingly off-message. In More Tales of the City, his second novel, Michael Tolliver (the character Maupin based most clearly on himself) writes a coming out letter to his mother, a letter that's been used as a template by real people countless times since. Referring to this, Maupin explains why he hasn't lent his name to Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" campaign for bullied gay teens, a video project whose contributors include Barack Obama and Jake Shears from Scissor Sisters. "My work has basically been saying it gets better for the last 36 years," he sighs. "I'd be surprised if the suicide rates [that inspired Savage's video campaign] have really increased – the sad truth is that gay kids have been killing themselves for years, and it simply hasn't been reported because of their families' shame. But the thing what Dan's done that is quite revolutionary, is calling upon adults to defend children. For years adult gay folks had been wary of concerning themselves with the plight of gay teenagers for fear of being accused of seducing them. But we're the experts. At least now people are willing to talk about the bullying – that's an improvement." However many decades pass, this will always be the story that Maupin tells, one of marginalised people fighting for a voice.

But then, just when you think you see where his sweetness is spreading, there's the unexpected sharpness, Alcatraz looming on the horizon of a peaceful Californian sea. "On the other hand," he adds, "when I was a child, homosexuality wasn't a constant topic of discussion. Now it's everywhere." He shakes his head. "Even though back then there was great darkness around the subject, the pressure for young people now is greater. It gets better, sure, but it gets worse too."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/19/armistead-maupin-interview

Author Magazine - An Interview With Armistead Maupin

http://www.authormagazine.org/interviews/interview_page_maupin.htm

Five real places that inspired great fiction

Audrey Medina, Special to The Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle December 10, 2010

All good fiction has its roots in the real world. The settings where stories take place have their own charm and character, influencing and changing the fictional folks that inhabit them as well as the readers. Here are places that inspired great works of fiction - but where experiences can be real.

1. Macondray Lane, San Francisco

There was always something interesting going on at 28 Barbary Lane. In Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," Barbary Lane is home for an adventuresome little band of locals. Listen closely and you might hear Mary Ann Singleton and Anna Madragil chatting in the garden as you stroll along this leafy path on Russian Hill. Explore it on your own or as part of the daylong Real SF Tour ($50). (888) 973-8687, www.therealsftour.com.

2. Cannery Row, Monterey

Doc Ricketts' lab, Lee Chong's grocery and La Ida's cafe are a few of the spots that inspired John Steinbeck's portrayal of life along the piers during the Great Depression. Learn more at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cannery Row exhibit, or take one of their monthly walking tours. (831) 648-4800, www.montereybayaquarium.org (search for "Cannery Row").

3. Angels Camp

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was the yarn that launched Mark Twain to international stardom. While Twain spent only 88 days in Angels Camp as a miner during the Gold Rush, he managed to find plenty of time to spend in the bar at the Angels Hotel listening to local stories. These days, Angels Camp is a quiet little mountain town, except for a few days every May during the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee. (209) 736-2561, www.frogtown.org/jubilee_home.shtml.

4. John's Grill, San Francisco

The interior hasn't changed since Dashiell Hammett sat at the bar ordering Sam Spade's usual, "chops, baked potato and sliced tomato." Spade was here, along with some other suspicious characters, on the lookout for the Maltese Falcon. Search for clues in the photos upstairs. 63 Ellis St., (415) 986-3274, www.johnsgrill.com.

5. The Bishop's Lodge, Santa Fe, N.M.

In Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop," the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, Jean Marie Latour, arrived in his new diocese in 1852. He made many improvements throughout his territory, including a small ranch in Little Tesuque Canyon. The story is based on the real life of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy. A lot of changes have been made during the last century, and today the Bishop's Lodge is an elegant resort. The little chapel has been saved, as has the stunning beauty of the landscape that Cather loved. Rooms from $149. Bishop's Lodge Road, (800) 419-0492, www.bishopslodge.com.

This article appeared on page M - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/10/TRVS1GLOV4.DTL#ixzz17kOmn92q