"Garden Club" Play Has Roots in Kosciusko

by Nancy Green, The Star-Herald

The world premiere of “The Attala County Garden Club” will be March 3 in Onstage Atlanta’s O2 Theatre.The play is the latest project of Atlanta playwright and columnist Topher Payne, son of Cleve and Sheryl Payne.
“Attala County” is a personal milestone for Payne, as it marks the first play he has set in his home state.“Not just in my home state,” said Payne. “It’s my hometown of Kosciusko, during the period I was growing up there. The story surrounds the experiences I think everyone has living in a small, close-knit community. You want to stand out as an individual, and know your own value, but you also want the comfort of acceptance, fitting in. And that can create some conflict.”

The play, a comedy directed by Jeanette Stinson, tells the tale of a young woman in the 1980s who joins a group of local gardening enthusiasts, then begins to suspect that she has signed up for more than she thought.
Payne is also the author of the comedies “Beached Wails,” “Relations Unknown” and “Bad Mama.”The director describes the play as “Steel Magnolias meets Rosemary’s Baby.”

“That’s the strength of Topher’s writing. There’s some complex issues presented in the story about race, isolation and the fear of people and things we don’t understand. And he addresses all of that while keeping the audience laughing, which I think is the best way to get people to listen,” said Stinson.

"My mother’s only concern was that I don’t use real names. I told her she’d have to wait and see,” said Payne.

Payne attended Kosciusko schools, The Taft School in Connecticut and The Idyllwild Arts Academy in California.His humor column, “Maybe It’s Just Me,” appears weekly in David Magazine distributed in metro areas throughout the Southeast.His plays have been produced throughout the United States, including New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

REVIEW: The Book of Liz

by Wendell Brock, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sister Elizabeth Donderstock has pretty much had it with her conservative Christian community, the Squeamish. (Think “Amish.”) She’s sweated herself skinny making the group’s signature source of income —- cheese balls —- and when the swishy, upstart Brother Brightbee begins to encroach on her territory, she decides to run away.
Wouldn’t you know the first person she encounters is a woman in a Mr. Peanut costume, who soon enlists Liz to work in a Pilgrim-themed restaurant that’s run by a bunch of recovering alcoholics. Alas, the 12-steppers are so cliquish that they won’t even let Poor Liz keep her transportation in an employee parking spot. (She drives a llama.)
Oh, goody.
“The Book of Liz” —- by the brother-sister team of David and Amy Sedaris —- has arrived in Atlanta, courtesy of Peter Hardy’s Essential Theatre Festival.
Director Lee Nowell’s cast is game to wallow in the tasteless fun and chew on a script that riffs on religious hypocrisy and the empowerment kick while sending up vintage Hollywood potboilers and American classics from “The Scarlet Letter” to “The Crucible.”
This means stock characters like town snoop Sister Butterworth (Dede Bloodworth), slimy interloper Brother Brightbee (Topher Payne) and the humble, put-upon Liz (Rachel Craw), who must go on a journey of initiation before discovering there’s no place like home.
That Payne invests Brightbee with a touch of Charles Busch’s Angela Arden says a good deal about this show’s camp factor. Payne, who has a wry and distinctive monotone, has certainly made himself over since he appeared as a drag queen in “Wizzer Pizzer.”
...In “Liz,” Essential Theatre picked a turkey —- in a good way. Stuffed with cheese and sleaze and covered with nuts, the show is a sinful treat for Sedaris fans and their brethren. Praise the Lord and pass the Williamsburgers.