Monday night in New York City the cast of Tales of the City gathered at the Metrograph for the show’s premiere and swanky after party. In attendance were the main cast — Ellen Page, Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis, Charlie Barnett, Zosia Mamet, Jen Richards, Garcia, and more — plus a guest list of LGBTQ+ stars including Handmaid’s Tale star Samira Wiley.
According to Netflix’s logline, the update of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City follows “Mary Ann (Laura Linney) returns to present-day San Francisco and is reunited with her daughter Shawna (Ellen Page) and ex-husband Brian (Paul Gross), 20 years after leaving them behind to pursue her career. Fleeing the midlife crisis that her picture-perfect Connecticut life created, Mary Ann is quickly drawn back into the orbit of Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis), her chosen family and a new generation of queer young residents living at 28 Barbary Lane.”
The new series also features Bob the Drag Queen and A Fantastic Woman star Daniela Vega, who appears as a trans activist in a flashback episode about Anna Madrigal’s past, one of the season’s standout installments.
The original Tales of the City miniseries, adapted from Maupin’s beloved books, debuted in the US on PBS in 1994, with a follow-up installments on Showtime in 1998 and 2001. San Francisco, where the show is set, has changed radically in the past 20 years thanks to the tech boom and ensuing gentrification, and much of the new series follows queer grappling with being priced out of a city they helped develop.
Tales of the City hits Netflix this Friday.
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