Tales of the City: Scissors, sex and sideburns

Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin’s love letter to gay San Francisco, is now a musical – with songs by Scissor Sister Jake Shears. Hadley Freeman watches it come together at rehearsals One day in 1991, when Jake Shears was 13 years old and so far from being “Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters ” that he was Jason Sellards and as yet unaware he was gay, he was hanging out with a gay couple, who had taken the youngster under their wing. “I think they knew I was gay before I did,” he recalls. “So, you know, they would turn me on to cool music.” One of them handed him a book, saying: “I think you’ll like this.” It was Tales of the City , Armistead Maupin ‘s much-loved saga set in 1970s San Francisco , involving a hugely diverse group of characters who are all (often unknowingly) linked, and many of whom live in a large guesthouse run by the mysterious Mrs Madrigal . The book is full of stories of bath houses and break-ups, all told in Maupin’s genial tone. “It was the first thing I’d ever read that had a positive gay perspective,” says Shears, “and two years later, I came out. Make of that what you will.” Twenty years later, Shears is repaying his debt to Tales. As he relates this story, backstage at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco , rehearsals are going on across the hall for the musical version of Tales of the City, for which he and fellow Scissor Sister John Garden have written the music and lyrics. The libretto is by Jeff Whitty , who won a Tony for Avenue Q , and it’s directed by Jason Moore, who also worked on the coming-of-age puppet parable. “Yes, your name has to begin with J to work here,” the press officer dryly confirms. The four Js make a charmingly symmetrical double double act, with the bright-eyed and loquacious Shears and the quieter Garden in one corner; and the adorably excited Whitty and the calmer Moore in the other. “It’s been extraordinary to see the books come to life on stage,” says Maupin, “but the really moving thing has been to see how well they all get along – they are 28 Barbary Lane.” This was the address of Madrigal’s house, where the characters meet, fall in love and form lifelong friendships. In fact, the genesis of the musical could have come from the pages of Tales itself. Whitty came up with the idea five years ago on a flight to London. He called Moore who instantly said yes. “Jeff was passionate about it, and that’s all I needed.” Whitty then made a mixtape of songs that sounded like the kind of music he and Moore wanted; the only contemporary piece was by the Scissor Sisters, so he called up Shears. How did he get his number so quickly? “Oh, we met about 11 years ago when we were both go-go dancers,” Shears recalls airily. “He enjoyed pulling his clothes off and dancing on bar tops. The first time we met in New York, I was probably off my face and we both had half our clothes off.” “That,” Whitty says, “pretty much describes it. And we’ve turned it into art! No regrets ever!” The other person Whitty had to convince was his literary idol, Maupin. “I read Tales when I was 21, when I first moved to New York ,” he smiles. “I was so lonely. Those characters were my company.” So, nervously, he flew to San Francisco, where the writer lives. But instead of the “big box of crazy” he was worried about finding, “Armistead was so welcoming. We just got stoned within the first five minutes and that was it.” Maupin puts it somewhat more euphemistically: “Oh, we instantly clicked and spent about five hours gabbing.” Maupin took to Shears right away, “although it took a while to get past the eyes”. Had he been a Scissors fan? “Well, I’d heard Filthy/Gorgeous before, which I thought was grabby and fun.” On the day we meet, Shears happens to be wearing a loose vest top featuring a design by Tom of Finland , inventor of the macho gay image; he looks more like a Tales characters than the currently dressed-down actors do. “It’s always been my ambition to make a musical,” he says. “When Jeff said Tales, my heart started racing, and I thought, ‘I

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