Attala County Garden Club: a comedy in two acts

In 1987 Kosciusko, Mississippi, recent divorcee Rose Chipley returns to her hometown to collect an inheritance- her Aunt Polly's creepy Queen Anne mansion- bringing a baby on her hip and the weight of a bad reputation. Salvation arrives in the form of the beguiling Bettye, who comes to Rose's door with jams & jelly, and an offer to join The Attala County Garden Club- a motley crew of trailer trash, homewreckers, and suspected arsonists.
In short order, Rose begins to be plagued by memory lapses, unexplained bumps in the night, and a mysterious broadcast from a broken baby monitor. When the Club unveils a secret project involving curiously cultivated kudzu, the line between Southern hospitality and supernatural manipulation blurs. Rose must navigate the hedge maze of a hidden past to uncover why her aunt really left her the house... and what the Club is growing in the shadows.
One of Topher Payne's earliest works, reimagined and rewritten twenty years later, this crossbreed of 1980s Southern comedy with supernatural pulp thrillers will cast a spell upon anyone who ever tried to fit in where they don't belong... and then had to contend with getting exactly what they asked for.
This Special Edition publication is the script premiered by New Stage Theatre in the 2026 production.

"A fresh bouquet of comedy...(Payne) knows how to create sharp, wild comedy that resonates with depth and timeliness, and he's done it again here."
ARTS ATL