They’ve worked on projects together and are scripting how to lend support to other stage artists.
Topher Payne, left, and Charlie Cote, married since 2022, are mainstays in the Atlanta theater scene. (Courtesy of Topher Payne and Charlie Cote)
By Jim Farmer – ArtsATL
7 minutes ago
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.
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Cote, left, and Payne at home in their Decatur backyard in 2024. (Courtesy of Topher Payne and Charlie Cote)
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In 2017. Topher Payne took over the role of Crumpet, the misanthropic elf, in Horizon Theatre’s staging of the sardonically humorous Christmas play “The Santaland Diaries.” (Courtesy of Horizon Theatre)
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Payne and Cote, well known in Atlanta theater circles, outside of Actor’s Express. (Courtesy of Topher Payne and Charlie Cote)
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Decatur writer Topher Payne on the set of his Hallmark movie “Broadcasting Christmas” in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2017. (Courtesy)
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