Churchill, Caryl (1938– )

English dramatist. Her themes explore history, the female spirit, and the effects upon the individual of living in a capitalist and sexist society. Her plays include the innovative and feminist Cloud Nine (1979) and Top Girls (1982), which study the hazards encountered by career women throughout history; Serious Money (1987), a hugely successful satire on the world of London's brash young financial brokers, written in rhyming couplets; and Mad Forest (1990). Drunk Enough to Say I Love You (2006) uses a romantic relationship as a metaphor for an obsequious political relationship between the UK and the USA.

Her work first received widespread attention with Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976), about the 17th-century Levellers in the English Civil War. Other plays include Fen (1983), Softcops (1984), a translation of Seneca's Thyestes (1994), The Skriker (1994), Traps (1997), and Far Away (2000). Mad Forest (1990) was set in Romania during the overthrow of the Ceauşescu regime. Her play A Number (2002) addressed the subject of human cloning.

Churchill was born in London, and educated in Montreal and at Queen Margaret College, Oxford. Her awards include three Obie Awards (1982, 1983, and 1988) and a Society of West End Theatre Award (1988).