Topher Payne’s plays Beached Wails (2002), Relations Unknown (2003), Cyrano (2004), Bad Mama (2005), and The Attala County Garden Club (2006) all premiered in Atlanta theatres, with subsequent regional productions.  His New York debut, Entertaining Lesbians (2004), was met with critical and audience acclaim.  In 2008, The Process Theatre Company in Atlanta 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.

  Since 2005, Atlanta readers have enjoyed Maybe It’s Just Me, his weekly column for David Magazine.  The column details 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 numerous Atlanta stages, including starring in the World Premiere of Amy Wheeler’s Wizzer Pizzer, the Southeastern premiere of Paul Rudnick’s Valhalla, 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.

  Topher lives with his partner, Tommy Nixon, in Decatur, Georgia.

  He can be reached at topher@topherpayne.com.