'Tales of the City' Bound for Broadway

Coming to Broadway: Mouse, Mary Ann, Brian, Mrs. Madrigal, and the rest of the residents of Barbary Lane!

This week's edition of Entertainment Weekly reports that Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) and Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters) are busy translating the novel Tales of the City into a musical.

Armistead Maupin's much-loved Tales of the City series started off as a serialized story in the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1970s. The serialized stories were later collected and slightly re-written to form individual novels: Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, and Significant Others. A sixth novel was published in 1989 without appearing in serialized form; it was intended to be the end of the series.

Since then, television versions of the first three novels have aired as mini-series, with the first adaptation being shown on PBS in1994. This led to an attempt in Congress to paint PBS as a purveyor of gay pornography, and charges that American tax dollars were going toward the production of trash (in fact, PBS spent nothing on the production costs; the Tales of the City mini-series was a British 1993 production). Angry phone calls, and even bomb threats, to PBS stations also resulted.

However, the series was well received in general and picked up two Emmy nominations. Cable channel Showtime later showed two subsequent mini-series, More Tales of the City (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001). The three mini-series starred Olympia Dukakis and served as a launch pad for three-time Academy Award-nominated actress Laura Linney, who played Mary Ann Singleton, a young woman who arrives in San Francisco in the mid-1970s and is swept up into the adventures of her landlady, the transsexual Mrs. Madrigal, and the other residents of the fictitious address at Barbary Lane, including Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a sexually adventurous gay man looking for love, former lawyer Brian Hawkins, and Mona Ramsey, an advertising executive with the heart of a flower child.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Whitty came up with the idea of turning Tales into a musical, and had no trouble convincing his long-time pal Shears, who roped fellow Sister John Garden into the task of writing the music and lyrics while Whitty tackled the book.

EW reports that the play would likely not be finished and ready for the stage until 2009.

Meantime, Maupin has updated his Tales with a seventh installment. Michael Tolliver Lives!, published in June 2007, provided a chance to catch up with Mouse and the gang, two decades older but still going strong. The paperback edition of the new novel will be out in May.