Now they sit in the audience for play 'Beached Wails'
BY SANDRA OKAMOTO, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Topher Payne sat nervously in the technicians' booth.
It was a year ago, and about 40 of the playwright's relatives had come from Mississippi to watch the premiere of "Beached Wails" in Atlanta.
"On opening night, I sat in the booth and I was able to observe both shows -- one on the stage and one in the audience," said Payne, 23. After watching that run, he immediately went to work and rewrote the second act. That version premiered in Atlanta in October.
"It was a new play," he said. "It's done for now."
"Beached Wails" is now playing in the Garret Theatre of the Playwright Cafe -- its first run outside of Atlanta.
"We're thrilled about it," Payne said.
For as long as Payne can remember, his mother and her three sisters would go to the beach every year. That week "was as firmly rooted as Christmas. When I grew up, I was surprised other families didn't do that."
He was intrigued about the four sisters' trips. "The way they talked and communicated with each other" made him want to be a fly on the wall.
Asked if he'd ever been on one of those trips, the answer came quickly: "Good Lord, no."
The motto in his family is that the play is "loosely based" on the four sisters. "My mother is very quick to point that out," Payne said.
His mother and his aunts liked the play very much. "They tease each other," he reports. "Every time a character gets a laugh, they take credit for it."
Payne attended boarding schools in Connecticut and California -- the Taft School in Watertown, Conn., and Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, Calif. "They could not have been more divergent," he said. "Taft School was more 'Dead Poets Society' and Idyllwild was 'Fame.' I was this lanky Mississippi boy taking it all in."
But he says he didn't learn to write in school. He was much younger when he started writing and performing.
"I will always remember my stage debut," he said. "I played a sparrow in the church Christmas play. I had one line but couldn't remember it. I was 4. The first thing I ever wrote was my own version of 'A Christmas Carol.' "
When he was in sixth grade, his parents bought him a video camera. "It was one of the greatest things for me, but one of the dumbest things for them because they had to sit through hours of my movies."
He said he has a "gloriously extended family," and his "endless number of cousins" became actors in his movies. Even then, he didn't have enough people. So he dressed up mannequins and disguised his own voice and turned the dummies around so people couldn't see that it wasn't a real person.
"I was a very odd child, but it all worked out in the end."
BY SANDRA OKAMOTO, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Topher Payne sat nervously in the technicians' booth.It was a year ago, and about 40 of the playwright's relatives had come from Mississippi to watch the premiere of "Beached Wails" in Atlanta.
"On opening night, I sat in the booth and I was able to observe both shows -- one on the stage and one in the audience," said Payne, 23. After watching that run, he immediately went to work and rewrote the second act. That version premiered in Atlanta in October.
"It was a new play," he said. "It's done for now."
"Beached Wails" is now playing in the Garret Theatre of the Playwright Cafe -- its first run outside of Atlanta.
"We're thrilled about it," Payne said.
For as long as Payne can remember, his mother and her three sisters would go to the beach every year. That week "was as firmly rooted as Christmas. When I grew up, I was surprised other families didn't do that."
He was intrigued about the four sisters' trips. "The way they talked and communicated with each other" made him want to be a fly on the wall.
Asked if he'd ever been on one of those trips, the answer came quickly: "Good Lord, no."
The motto in his family is that the play is "loosely based" on the four sisters. "My mother is very quick to point that out," Payne said.
His mother and his aunts liked the play very much. "They tease each other," he reports. "Every time a character gets a laugh, they take credit for it."
Payne attended boarding schools in Connecticut and California -- the Taft School in Watertown, Conn., and Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, Calif. "They could not have been more divergent," he said. "Taft School was more 'Dead Poets Society' and Idyllwild was 'Fame.' I was this lanky Mississippi boy taking it all in."
But he says he didn't learn to write in school. He was much younger when he started writing and performing.
"I will always remember my stage debut," he said. "I played a sparrow in the church Christmas play. I had one line but couldn't remember it. I was 4. The first thing I ever wrote was my own version of 'A Christmas Carol.' "
When he was in sixth grade, his parents bought him a video camera. "It was one of the greatest things for me, but one of the dumbest things for them because they had to sit through hours of my movies."
He said he has a "gloriously extended family," and his "endless number of cousins" became actors in his movies. Even then, he didn't have enough people. So he dressed up mannequins and disguised his own voice and turned the dummies around so people couldn't see that it wasn't a real person.
"I was a very odd child, but it all worked out in the end."
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