Top Girls

Caryl Churchill is one of the most significant and prolific British playwrights of the postmodern era, and her experiments with form have had enormous influence on the landscape of contemporary British theatre. She has written over thirty plays, along with several translations and adaptations, and her work has been celebrated not only in the UK, but internationally as well, particularly in the US. Her works explore issues of feminism, oppression, and abuse of power. Churchill was born in 1938 to a father who was a political cartoonist and a mother who left school at age 14 and took jobs as a secretary, an actor, and a model, often removing her wedding ring before going to work. She continued to act occasionally after giving birth to her daughter. Churchill’s parents encouraged her to strive toward having both family and career. The family moved to Canada when Churchill was 10, and she returned to England to earn her undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature at Oxford, where her first plays were staged by student theatre organizations. Churchill married a barrister, David Harter, in 1961, and subsequently had three sons. She struggled to find time to write, and although the family had the financial privilege to afford domestic help and childcare, the demands of motherhood were nonetheless a serious obstacle to her work.