Celebrating the birth & legacy of

CARYL CHURCHILL

“You make beauty and it disappears, I love that.”

— Caryl Churchill

Caryl Churchill is a British playwright whose work has been described as challenging, rigorous and utterly original. A “boundary breaking theatrical explorer,” she is known for dramatizing abuses of power and for her exploration of feminist themes.

Churchill was born on September 3, 1938 in London.  She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford where she studied English Literature. Downstairs, her first play, was written while she was still at university, and was first staged in 1958, winning an award at the Sunday Times National Union of Students Drama Festival. She also wrote a number of plays for BBC radio.  Owners, her first professional stage production, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1972. 

She was resident dramatist at the Royal Court from 1974 to 1975, the first female playwright in residence.  In the 70s and 80s she also collaborated with the theatre groups Joint Stock and Monstrous Regiment.  Her work during this period includes Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) and Cloud Nine (1979).

“What's poetry? It's not real but maybe it's more than real. It's dreaming while you're awake.”

— Caryl Churchill

Cloud Nine, her first play to receive wide notice, explores the effects of the colonialist/imperialist mindset on intimate personal relationships, and uses cross-gender casting for comic and instructive effect. The play won an Obie Award in 1982 for best play of the year.

Her play Top Girls  brings together five historical female characters at a dinner party in a London restaurant given by Marlene, the new managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency.  The play won a second Obie Award for Churchill in 1983 for best play of the year.  It was revived on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2008 with a cast featuring Mary Beth Hurt, Martha Plimpton and Marisa Tomei.

Serious Money, a comedy about excesses in the financial world, was first produced at the Royal Court in 1987 and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year and the Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play.  Other works include Mad Forest (1990), written after a visit to Romania, and The Skriker (1994).  Extremely prolific, Churchill’s work continues into the 2000s with Far Away (2000),  A Number (2002), which addresses the subject of human cloning, Seven Jewish Children - a play for Gaza (2009), Love and Information (2012), Ding Dong the Wicked (2013), Here We Go (2015) and Escaped Alone (2016).

Caryl Churchill declines to speak publicly about her plays (she has not granted an interview to a major newspaper since the 1990s).  She once told her publisher, “I really don't like talking about my work. It makes me self-conscious when I come to write the next thing.”  She worried that if she became analytical about the plays, whatever it is that produces them will go away.   Caryl Churchill currently lives in London.

"The exciting thing about Caryl is that she always tends to break new ground. The degree of innovation is extraordinary. Every play almost reinvents the form of theatre."

— Dominic Cooke, Artistic Director, Royal Court

Portions of this biography are from the British Council on Literature 

Learn more about CARYL CHURCHILL:

Read More:
Caryl Churchill’s Prophetic Drama
Andrew Dickson, The New Yorker

Read More:
Churchill Plays
 

✨ Next week… ✨

We will celebrate the birth of Caryl Churchill with a performance from one of her plays by Actors Co-op company members, Eva Abramian & Tara Battani!
These performances will be delivered to you for safe viewing at home, via email. 

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