Author of Tales of the City in conversation with Jon Carroll

Best-selling author Armistead Maupin will participate in an evening of lively conversation with columnist Jon Carroll on Thursday, April 14th, 7:00 pm at the Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Avenue, Berkeley. Mr. Maupin is expected to cover a wide variety of topics and engage the audience with his fabled abilities as a storyteller and raconteur. The event will benefit the academic and financial assistance programs of Oakland’s Park Day School.

Armistead Maupin forged the way as one of the first of a new breed of openly gay authors, but his instant widespread appeal resided in his inclusiveness as a storyteller. For over thirty years the characters from his Tales of the City series have blossomed in popular culture—from the groundbreaking newspaper serial, to nine international bestselling novels, to a Peabody Award-winning miniseries starring Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney. A 2006 online poll of British readers named Tales of the City the UK’s all-time favorite gay or lesbian novel. In 2007, Maupin revisited one of the series’ characters with another novel, Michael Tolliver Lives. His most recent novel, Mary Ann in Autumn, was published in the fall of 2010.

This May, the American Conservatory Theatre of San Francisco will present the world premiere of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, a new musical enlisting the talents of librettist Jeff Whitty and director Jason Moore – Tony Award–winning creators of AVENUE Q – and composers Jake Shears and John Garden – the musical minds behind the glam-rock phenomenon Scissor Sisters.

Armistead Maupin’s other works include the New York Times bestseller The Night Listener, which created a sensation in the publishing world when its real-life origins were revealed in an article by The New Yorker and a follow-up investigation by ABC ’s 20/20. The psychological suspense novel was inspired by Maupin’s longtime telephone friendship with Anthony Godby Johnson, a 14-year-old memoirist whose very existence Maupin began to question. “It was like living in the middle of a mystery novel,” Maupin said. “Once it started happening I knew I had to write about it.” He wrote the screen adaptation of The Night Listener, starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Miramax pictures.

Armistead Maupin is also the author of the bestselling novel Maybe the Moon, which chronicles the misadventures of a dwarf actress working in Hollywood. He wrote the narration for the award-winning documentary “The Celluloid Closet,” and was himself the subject of an hour-long BBC documentary, “Armistead Maupin Is A Man I Dreamt Up.” As a librettist, he collaborated in 1999 with composer Jake Heggie on “Anna Madrigal Remembers” for mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and classical choral ensemble Chanticleer.

Maupin lives in San Francisco with his husband, Christopher Turner.

General admission tickets are $30. A very limited number (25) of $50 tickets will be available, which include priority seating and a post-show reception with the two speakers.



Click here to purchase tickets on-line: Armistead Maupin

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=115793