BEST LOCAL PLAYWRIGHT  Creative Loafing Reader's Choice Awards, 2010 

  BEST LOCAL WRITER  The GA Voice Reader's Choice Awards, 2010 

  BEST LOCAL ACTOR/ACTRESS   The GA Voice Reader's Choice Awards, 2010 

  BEST LOCAL PLAYWRIGHT  Hunt Archbold, The Sunday Paper, 2010 

  WINNER, BEST PLAY OF THE YEAR  Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards, 2009 

  Topher Payne, loves how people talk, and takes very careful notes.

  His first play, Road Hazards, was produced as part of New Stage Theatre's teen playwriting series in 1997, and he has been creating worlds populated by well-intentioned oddities ever since. 

  Topher has been based in Atlanta since 1999.  He has premiered more than a dozen plays in Atlanta theatres.  His New York debut, Entertaining Lesbians (2004), was met with critical and audience acclaim.  In 2008, The Process Theatre Company presented 3 by Topher, the World Premiere productions of three new works: Above the Fold, Don’t Look at the Fat Lady, and Perfect Arrangement.  Above the Fold was honored with the 2009 Metro Atlanta Theatre Awards for Best Original Work and Best Overall Production.  Jo Howarth was named Best Actress for her performance in Don't Look at the Fat Lady.

  Flying Carpet Theatre’s production of his The Medicine Showdown (co-authored with Adam Koplan), was selected as one of Creative Loafing’s Top Ten Plays of 2009, and Top 50 of the Decade.  In the 2010-2011 season, Topher will premiere two new comedies:  Tokens of Affection at Georgia Ensemble Theatre, and Lakebottom Proper at the State Theatre of Georgia, The Springer Opera House.

  From 2005 to 2009, Atlanta readers enjoyed Maybe It’s Just Me, his weekly column for David Magazine.  The column detailed his own personal foibles and triumphs with, as Payne describes it, “rather embarrassing candor.”  A compilation of the first three years of his columns, a book entitled Necessary Luxuries, was released in September of 2008.  The abridged audio version, featuring a cast of Atlanta actors, is available on iTunes.

  As an actor, Payne has appeared on stages across America, including starring in the World Premiere of Amy Wheeler’s Wizzer Pizzer, the Southeastern premieres of Paul Rudnick’s Valhalla and Peter Sinn-Nachtrieb's boom, and the Atlanta premiere of Del Shores’ Southern Baptist Sissies, which enjoyed a sold-out run in 2007.  He starred in the film Str8 Chaser, which won the Audience Award at the 2006 Atlanta Out on Film Festival.  In 2008 and 2009, Topher co-starred with Jef Holbrook in the National Tours of Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas, directed by the show’s co-creator, Ed Howard. 

  Topher is a native of Kosciusko, Mississippi.  He attended The Taft School in Connecticut for a minute or two, and managed to stick around a little longer at The Idyllwild Arts Academy in California.  He was granted an honorary diploma from Idyllwild Arts in 2007, and was a featured speaker at commencement week in 2008.

  He is a proud member of Working Title Playwrights, as well as the Artistic Companies for Flying Carpet Theater in New York, Onstage Atlanta in Atlanta, and is the Literary Manager for Process Theatre Company.

  Topher writes at a little brick house in Decatur, Georgia.  His husband, Tommy Payne, has a real job, which makes the little brick house possible.  Their beagle, Daisy, delights in stealing pages from the printer and running around the little brick house.  When he isn't chasing the dog to get the pages back, he can be reached at topher@topherpayne.com.