Charlotte Talks Conversation With Armistead Maupin

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Charlotte Talks is headed to Hickory for a conversation with pioneering LGBT author Armistead Maupin.

The North Carolina-raised writer will join Mike Collins at Lenoir-Rhyne University as part of its Visiting Writers Series.

Maupin has been credited with changing how LGBT persons are portrayed in literature through his "Tales of the City" serial in the 1970s in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the subsequent book series of the same name that spanned four decades.

More recently, Maupin's memoir, Logical Family, explored his journey from being a closeted member of a conservative Raleigh family, to being the chronicler of the LGBT experience in America.

Our conversation with Maupin will be recorded live at the P.E. Monroe Auditorium at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 7 and broadcast on Charlotte Talks on Monday, Feb. 11.

https://www.wfae.org/post/join-us-charlotte-talks-conversation-armistead-maupin#stream/0

SAYING GOOD-BYE

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“Dr. Jack Kincaid administered a sedative to his wife, while his daughter and son-in-law said good-bye to him.
He was flat on his back in bed. His skin was so pale that it seemed translucent.
“Daddy?”
“Is that you, DeDe?”
“It’s me and Beauchamp.”
“Oh.”
“We have a surprise for you, Daddy.”
Beauchamp flashed an uneasy glance at his wife. DeDe glared back at him, then turned and knelt at her father’s bedside.
“Daddy … we’re going to make you a grandfather.”
Silence.
“Did you hear me, Daddy?”
Edgar smiled. “I heard.”
“Aren’t you glad?”
He lifted his hand feebly. “Could you … show me?”
“She’s so small.” DeDe stood up, taking his hand, pressing it gently against her belly. “I don’t think you can feel…”
“No. I can feel her. You think it’s a girl, huh?”
“Yes.”
“So do I. Have you picked out a name yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Name her Anna, will you?”
“Anna?”
“I’ve … always liked the name.”
Smiling again, he kept his hand pressed against the warm new life. “Hello, Anna,” he said. “How the hell are you?”

Excerpt From: Armistead Maupin. “Tales of the City.”

Thanks for the memories, Donald Moffat (Edgar Halcyon)

Donald Moffat, the actor who played Edgar Halcyon in "Tales", dies at 87

Armistead wrote a tribute on his facebook page:

“In the original "Tales of the City" (1993) Donald Moffat played Edgar Halcyon, a dying businessman who has one last chance at romance with Anna Madrigal, the transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane. The kindness and gentle strength he projected in that role was very close to the demeanor of the man himself. We adored him on the set, especially Olympia Dukakis, who had suggested him for the role. I shall always be proud that I knew him.”

Here’s a link to the New York Times article about Moffat: Donald Moffat, 87, a Top Actor Who Thrived in Second Billings, Dies

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Logical Family: An Evening with Armistead Maupin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jamie Parker, Sarah Tynan, Russell Tovey & David Parry

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from classicalsource.com
Tuesday, December 19, 2017 Barbican Hall, London

Reviewed by Peter Reed

Like everyone else I knew then, I devoured Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City books when they started appearing in the 1970s, an irresistible mix of Dickens-like vividness, a pragmatic approach to gay liberation and a very American can-do positivism. I’d wondered if Mary Ann Singleton, Anna Madrigal, Mouse and 28 Barbary Lane would still be flourishing in the brisker milieu of computers, Facebook and tweets, but four decades on their stories of innocence and experience still jump off the page (and were brilliantly recreated for television by Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis and Marcus D’Amico).

Armistead Maupin, now seventy-three and an international gay treasure, was in London to read extracts from his new autobiography, Logical Family, a modest event in a major concert-hall with a full-strength orchestra and solo singers providing the soundtrack to a life well lived.

Maupin, brought up in South Carolina, hitched his wagon to the southern splendour of ‘Tara’s theme’ from Max Steiner’s music for Gone with the Wind, played just on the right side of gaudy, moving on through Sarah Tynan’s slinky ‘Summertime’ (Porgy and Bess) and a wonderfully secretive Noël Coward ‘Mad about the boy’ from Jamie Parker against an over-luscious orchestral arrangement, the first half rounded off by the tightly-geared John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine played with hi-definition precision.

The predominantly American music continued with Masquerade, a maelstrom of percussion and swooning string-writing premiered at the 2013 Last Night of the Proms, by the UK-born, USA-residing Anna Clyne, the big tune from Bernard Herrmann’s majestic score for Hitchcock’s Vertigo that summed up Kim Novak’s remote glamour, a stunning clarinet duo in Mason Bates’s Nymphs, Tynan sublime in ‘O mio babbino caro’ (Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi), and the parade reasserted itself with Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Overture. There was no information about the choice of music, but it shadowed the ups and downs (mostly ups) of Maupin’s life, and David Parry transmitted his showbiz wizardry to the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Maupin and his book, though, were the main event. His southern courtliness and an infectious garrulousness are as present in his reading as they are in his writing as he took us through early family life, his abrupt loss of virginity, his big break writing about supermarket cruising in the Pacific Sun paper, coming out against Anita Bryant’s virulently-anti-gay Save our Children campaign, the deaths of his parents and his beloved English grandmother – all related with a light, gossipy detail that lingers in the memory.

Along with his endearing, self-deprecating humour and nostalgia, there’s a steely moral purpose and an equally affecting inclination to think the best of people, which is one of the abiding pleasures of Tales of the City. Candide didn’t have the last word – this was given to actor Russell Tovey, just about holding it together as he read 'Michael’s Letter to Mama'.

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Netflix's 'Tales of the City' Welcomes Back Paul Gross, Fills Out Cast

Netflix's 'Tales of the City' Welcomes Back Paul Gross, Fills Out Cast

The continuation of the series based on Armistead Maupin's novels will feature a host of LGBTQ people in front of and behind the camera.

Netflix's revival of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has filled out its cast, and it includes a familiar face from the first installment of the series and a number of LGBTQ actors.