Vinegar Tom

With over 50 plays for stage and radio to her name, the prolific Caryl Churchill is considered by many other writers as our greatest living playwright. She is known for pushing boundaries, both in rethinking traditional theatrical forms as well as creating works that are compelling calls to action on a number of subjects, including feminism, abuses of power and sexual politics.

Born in London, England in 1938, Churchill emigrated to Canada after the second World War but returned in 1956 to attend Oxford University. While raising her family in the 1960s and 1970s, Churchill wrote radio dramas and television plays for the BBC. In 1972, her play Owners, a two-act, 15-scene play about obsession with power, was her first work to be produced in London. From 1974-5 she served as the Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre.

Churchill has won multiple Obie Off-Broadway Awards, including for Cloud 9 (1981), a farce about sexual politics; Top Girls (1982), a play about women losing humanity to gain power; Serious Money (1987), a comedy about excesses in the financial world; as well as the Obie for Sustained Achievement Award (2001).

Churchill is known for experimenting with non-traditional techniques and theatrical forms, including Hotel (1997), a choreographed opera or sung ballet set in a hotel room; This Is a Chair (1999), a surrealistic short play; and Love and Information (2012), a play with over 100 characters in 57 unrelated scenes that leaves audiences questioning the choices that they make online and how they affect the truly important things in their lives.

Now into her 80s, Churchill continues to be exceptionally productive, having written nine plays in the past five years.