Angry Fags: a play in two acts

"It's only terrorism if it doesn't work. When it works, we call it a revolution."
An out lesbian state senator is up for re-election. Her female opponent is a moderate conservative who's aligned herself with right-wing extremists. They're locked in a tight race in which each side dog-whistles to its base and any event can become instantaneously politicized.
When a gay man is bashed with a baseball bat and left to die, his ex-boyfriend, a campaign aide for the incumbent senator, is enraged. But it's the unwillingness of his boss to label it a hate-crime that tips him over the edge. Teaming up with his best friend, the two men embark on a vendetta of sabotage and assassinations, reasoning that if gays aren't respected enough to win equal justice and rights, fear will achieve what good intentions and politics cannot.
Vicious, deliciously subversive, brutal and breathtakingly funny, Payne's dystopian revenge tragedy is a warning and a plea that doggedly pushes every button.

"Witty, dark, and disconcerting." - OUT MAGAZINE
"A comedy thriller for the modern age" - BROADWAYWORLD SYDNEY
"A gay gentleman's guide to love and murder [...] Filled with tension but laced with moments of black humor and rigged with unexpected twists and turns." - CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"A puzzle box of twists, double-crosses, and heart-wrenching tragedy...ANGRY FAGS is a daring, devastating accomplishment." -VEGAS 411
"(Payne) softens the blows with his wickedly fine talent for one-liners, yet there's a heaviness in the room. His laugh lines are balloons weighted to earth like sandbags; that's the yin and the yang, the push and pull of ANGRY FAGS." - ARTS ATL
"The singularly most offensive, anti-gay work imaginable." - CHICAGO SUN-TIMES