Caryl Churchill
born Sept. 3, 1938, London, Eng.
British playwright whose work frequently
deals with feminist issues, the abuses of
power, and sexual politics.
When Churchill was 10, she immigrated
with her family to Canada. She attended Lady
Margaret Hall, a women’s college of the
University of Oxford, and remained in
England after receiving a B.A. in 1960. Her
three earliest plays, Downstairs (produced
1958), Having a Wonderful Time (produced
1960), and Easy Death (produced 1962), were
performed by Oxford-based theatrical
ensembles.
During the 1960s and ’70s, while raising
a family, she wrote radio dramas and then
television plays for British television.
Owners, a two-act, 14-scene play about
obsession with power, was her first major
theatrical endeavour and was produced in
London in 1972. During her tenure as
resident dramatist at London’s Royal Court
Theatre, Churchill wrote Objections to Sex
and Violence (1974), which, though not
well-reviewed, led to her successful
association with David Hare and Max
Stafford-Clark’s Joint Stock Company and
with Monstrous Regiment, a feminist group.
Cloud 9 (1979), a farce about sexual
politics, was successful in the United
States as well as in Britain, winning an
Obie Award in 1982 for best play of the
year. The next year she won another Obie for
best play with Top Girls (1982), which deals
with women’s losing their humanity in order
to attain power in a male-dominated
environment. Softcops (produced 1984), a
surreal play set in 19th-century France
about government attempts to depoliticize
illegal acts, was produced by the Royal
Shakespeare Company. Serious Money (1987) is
a comedy about excesses in the financial
world, and Icecream (1989) investigates
Anglo-American stereotypes. The prolific
Churchill continued to push boundaries into
the late 1990s. In 1997 she collaborated
with the composer Orlando Gough to create
Hotel, a choreographed opera or sung ballet
set in a hotel room. Also that year her
surrealistic short play This Is a Chair was
produced.
