NECESSARY LUXURIESTopher Payne just wants a little peace, and to settle down with someone nice.Both seem to consistently elude him.Always leaving the house with the best of intentions, he somehow manages to humiliate himself in front of Martha Stewart, wander onto a porn set, steal a cat, get in an alley fight in Ireland, march with gay Native Americans in the New York Pride Parade, and serve as best man at a Las Vegas transsexual wedding.Topher tries to hold out hope for a Mr. Right who’ll accept his life of almost-manageable chaos. Along the way he discovers that maintaining a happy life takes more than the bare essentials… everyone requires a few necessary luxuries.
TOPHER PAYNE is the author of the column “Domestically Disturbed," which appears in The GA Voice. His previous column, "Maybe It´s Just Me," appeared for five years in David Magazine. He has garnered acclaim nationwide for his plays, including "Beached Wails," "Lakebottom Proper," "The Medicine Showdown," and "Above the Fold," which won the 2009 Metro Atlanta Theatre Award for Best Play of the Year. Readers of The GA Voice named him Atlanta´s best local writer, and readers of Creative Loafing Atlanta voted him Best Local Playwright.He starred in the film Str8 Chaser, which won the Audience Award at the 2006 Out on Film Festival in Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called him “wise beyond his years,” and author Scott Turner Schofield dubbed him the “gay Carrie Bradshaw”, though he sadly lacks the Sex and the City heroine’s wardrobe budget.