Atlanta theater notables Topher Payne, Charlie Cote happy as life co-stars
Although writers and theater artists Topher Payne and Charlie Cote crossed paths professionally several times over the years, it was a dating app that ultimately brought them together. Cote was on the LGBTQ+ app Scruff near the end of the COVID lockdown when he received a message from another man nearby introducing himself as Topher Payne.
“I thought he was catfishing me,” Cote recalls. “I thought he was not Topher Payne. He did not have a photo and messaged me on an app.” Yet Cote played along — and eventually discovered he was interacting with the real person.
Cote was familiar with Payne’s work and had seen many of his productions. The two met in passing when Payne was starring in Horizon Theatre’s “The Santaland Diaries” in 2017 and had been in rooms together dating back to 2004 when Cote was involved with the children’s play “Alana” at Onstage Atlanta, and Payne was in the cast of Eula Mae’s “Beauty, Bait & Tackle.” Still, their Scruff chat was the first in-depth communication.
Payne can laugh at the situation now. “He genuinely thought someone else would pretend to be Topher Payne to pick up boys.” For Payne, Cote’s description particularly intrigued him. “His profile said he was a playwright and — not to toot my own horn — some young handsome guy is claiming to be a playwright in Atlanta, and I had never heard of him?”
Cote came prepared for the first date. He brought dramaturgical notes about Payne’s play “Angry Fags” with him and brought up some issues he had with it — and the two moved forward.
At the time the couple met, Cote’s mother had health concerns, and Payne’s roommate was pregnant. “Both of us were living with vulnerable people,” Payne says. “Our courtship extended to Facebook Messenger, then texting and finally progressed to backyard dates.” They married on Groundhog Day — Feb. 2, 2022. They now live in Decatur with a dog and cat.
Payne, 46, is one of the area’s busiest and most recognized playwrights and artists. His “Perfect Arrangement” made it to off-Broadway in 2015, received a positive review from The New York Times and has been performed around the world. He has segued into TV and written six films for Hallmark Channel, including 2025’s “The Christmas Baby,” which was nominated for a recent GLAAD Media Award.
Cote, 32, attended Columbia College in Chicago, majoring in dramatic literature and minoring in acting and film production. After school, he was involved with companies such as Chicago Dramatists and was awarded a fellowship in playwriting with Lambda Literary. He moved back to the area in 2018 and has worked behind the scenes for Horizon, where he was a playwriting apprentice, and Out Front Theatre Company.
Cote says he has been writing plays since he was 2 years old. “It’s always been my primary mode of expression and the thing I cannot stop creating, even when there are more lucrative (options) that seem like a good idea,” he says.
As a gay/queer man of trans experience, Cote also offers gender-inclusive consulting for media and individuals.
The couple collaborated on the world premiere play “You Enjoy Myself” at Local Theatre Company in Boulder in 2023. Payne wrote the script, and Cote was the dramaturge. It was a partnership that grew naturally before Payne even sought a producer.
“I really wanted to explore the possibility of the lead character in ‘You Enjoy Myself’ being a woman of trans experience and did not feel remotely qualified to tell that story,” Payne says.
He asked Cote for his thoughts, and the continuing development of the script was a series of conversations between the collaborators. “I could not imagine developing it without Charlie’s voice,” Payne says. “He’s been essential in the rebuilding of the text. It ended with something magical — you can definitely hear Charlie in it as much as you can hear me.”
Both have individual projects as well.
Payne recently wrote a new version of his 2006 play, “The Attala County Garden Club,” for New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi, and his “A First Lady’s Guide to Killing the President” was given a May run by Out of Box Theatre in Sandy Springs. The latter is an historical comedy that imagines President Warren G. Harding and his scheming wife, two blackmailing mistresses and more threats to the president.
Cote is working on a screenplay, and although he’s written several, his latest is perhaps his most significant — it’s a collaboration with the LGBT Community Center National History Archive in New York City about historical figure Liz Eden, a transgender woman whose husband attempted to rob a bank to pay for her gender-affirming surgery. The film “Dog Day Afternoon” was based on Eden’s story.
Both Payne and Cote are aware that inevitably there are times when one will be busy and the other not, and they are fine with that. Their work-life balances have changed, too, since the pandemic.
The biggest shift in Payne’s career in the last decade has been moving into teaching, both at Berry College and Oglethorpe University, and being more selective in his projects. At one point, he wrote seven plays in five years, as well as scripts.
“I feel I have gotten more intentional about how I am going to spend my time,” he says. “I am aware that work on a play is going to take me about a year-and-a-half, and, at my age, I am more aware of the cost of a year-and-a-half than when I was 25. I am pickier and more excited about what others are doing.”
Cote laughs in response because he still feels Payne is always busy.
They do agree on one thing: that over the last few years, Payne has been focused on assisting fellow artists. “And that is Charlie’s bread and butter — supporting the stories of others, whether teaching or dramaturgy or other capacity,” Payne says. “So, when we met each other, it was this lovely point of intersection, trying to figure out what community was going to look like.”
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