Centlivre (or Carroll), Susannah (c. 1667–c. 1723)

English dramatist and actor. The author of 19 plays, her first was a tragi-comedy, The Perjured Husband (1700). Success as a dramatist came with the comedy The Gamester (1705), which was followed by The Busie Body (1709) and A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718), both farcical comedies of intrigue. As an actor, she specialized in male roles, as in The Beau's Duel (1702).

She appeared in Bath in her own comedy, Love at a Venture (1706), and in the same year dedicated her play The Platonick Lady to ‘all the Generous Encouragers of Female Ingenuity’. She also wrote the popular farce The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret (1714).

Centlivre was probably born in Lincolnshire, either in Whaplode or Holbeach. According to some sources she was taught French by a tutor, and there is a story of her masquerading as a young man in order to gain entrance to Cambridge. In 1706 she married Joseph Centlivre, head cook to Queen Anne at Windsor.