Topher Payne is one busy playwright these days. Two of the local gay thespian’s works were staged in the last year, and his new show "The Attala County Garden Club" receives its world premiere next week at Onstage Atlanta."Attala" takes place in Kosciusko, Miss., where Payne himself grew up. In the play, young Rose Chipley decides to join the City Garden Club. Rose is a woman in her 20s who just had a baby. Joining the high society club is part of an effort to stake out her own identity. But she is rejected by the garden club president, who ironically is her own mother. Rose is told it is too early for her to join, that the responsibility is too large.
In retaliation, Rose decides to join the Attala County Garden Club, which is unofficially known as the Reject Bin. Inside the new group, the young woman finds a few surprises, including witches who plan to avenge the town that rejected them.
Payne wanted to write a piece about his hometown, but the format strayed a little while he wrote it.
"I haven’t been back in 10 years now," Payne says. "… The child in me has wonderful memories, but the person I’ve become could never live there. As I started writing this, the show changed from being a Southern comedy, a love letter to my home, to something a bit darker."
As part of his research, Payne talked to witches.
"The one thing I wanted to do is respect their world," he says. "So many of the people I interviewed said that often it’s done wrong- I know how I feel when I see the gay community represented on stage or screen and they just get it wrong."
With the Internet, the playwright feels small towns aren’t as isolated as they once were.
"For teenagers growing up in small towns 20 years ago, there was the sense of not being in the norm," he asserts. "They didn’t feel the sense of belonging, and weren’t able interact with anyone outside your immediate environment. It was a time without much connection for those of us who felt different."
Payne says that "Attala" fits well with his other works.
"My plays have a theme: that of finding a common bond, acceptance in unlikely places," he says. "In this show, women who probably would never as much as have conversations with each other find they need each other. One is called white trash, another a home wrecker, another is black, but they unite and join forces."
