Netflix has ordered a new 10-episode installment of “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City,” Variety has learned.
As previously announced when it was revealed the series was in development, Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis will reprise their roles as Mary Ann Singleton and Anna Madrigal respectively. In addition, Barbara Garrick, who played DeDe Halcyon Day in the original miniseries, is also set to return.
Finally, “Juno” and “Inception” star Ellen Page will join the series as Shawna, Mary Ann’s daughter.
Based on the books by Maupin, the new installment follows Mary Ann, who returns home to San Francisco and is reunited with her daughter and ex-husband Brian, twenty years after leaving them behind to pursue her career. Fleeing the midlife crisis that her picture perfect Connecticut life created, Mary Ann returns home to her chosen family and will quickly be drawn back into the orbit of Anna Madrigal and the residents of 28 Barbary Lane.
Production is expected to start later this year with the show slated to debut in 2019.
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Lauren Morelli, who previously worked as a writer and co-executive producer on the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Maupin will executive produce along with Linney. Alan Poul returns to direct and executive produce.
“Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City” is a Working Title Television and NBCUniversal International studios production for Netflix. Working Title’s Andrew Stearn, Liza Chasin, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner also executive produce. Michael Cunningham will serve as a consulting producer.
The book series has long been hailed as a cultural touchstone for the LGBT, with the novels being among the first to address the AIDS crisis.
PBS carried the original six-part “Tales” miniseries in January 1994, which generated controversy in some regions for its depiction of LGBT relationships. Showtime ran the subsequent miniseries, 1998’s “More Tales of the City” and 2001’s “Further Tales of the City.”
