Caryl Churchill was born on Sept. 3, 1938, in London, and she lived in both England and Canada while growing up. Writing was her passion even as a child. She first began to develop an interest in the theater while attending Oxford University, where she received a bachelor's degree in English in 1960. Churchill wrote her first three plays at Oxford. They were ‘Downstairs' (1958), ‘You've No Need to be Frightened' (1959), and ‘Having a Wonderful Time' (1959).

For more than a decade following her graduation from Oxford, Churchill wrote radio plays which were broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company. Plays from this early period include ‘Lovesick' (1965), ‘Not . . . Not . . . Not . . . Not . . . Not Enough Oxygen' (1971), and ‘Schreber's Nervous Illness' (1972). In 1961 Churchill married David Harter, with whom she had three sons.

Churchill's first professional stage production came in 1972 when ‘Owners' was performed at the Royal Court Theatre. Two years later she became a resident playwright for that theater for one year. In 1976 Churchill began working with the Joint Stock Theatre Group, an innovative production company that was founded in 1974. At Joint Stock, actors, writers and directors explored thematic ideas during a workshop period before a play was ever written. The playwright then left, wrote the piece, and the group re-convened to rehearse and perform it.

Churchill's first play written in this way was ‘Light Shining in Buckinghamshire' (1976), followed by ‘Cloud Nine' (1978), which quickly gained international attention. The play drew parallels between two types of oppression, colonialism and sexism, through depictions of an English family living in colonial Africa. ‘A Mouthful of Birds' (1986) was also written and produced in collaboration with the Joint Stock Theatre Group.

Churchill also worked with a theater company called Monstrous Regiment. This touring group used many of the same techniques as Joint Stock but primarily presented feminist works. One of Churchill's most important plays, ‘Vinegar Tom' (1976), was written with and for Monstrous Regiment. ‘Vinegar Tom' is loosely set in 17th-century England, when many women were tortured and murdered for allegedly practicing witchcraft.

Many of Churchill's works were critiques of the economic and social status quo, and they often reflected her dissatisfaction with 20th-century gender politics. Her exploration of these issues was accomplished using thick layers of somewhat difficult language and innovative theatrical devices. In ‘Top Girls' (1982), for instance, Churchill depicts a dinner party hosted by a British woman in the early 1980s. This successful woman invites to the party five famous and courageous women, all of whom happen to be dead. The women share their stories, exploring age-old dichotomies between women's internal and external definitions of success and achievement. Similar surrealist devices were employed in many other Churchill plays as well.

Churchill's techniques often deconstructed traditional forms and expectations of theater, placing her firmly in the post-modern category of playwrights. Her rejection of standard theatrical structures was rooted in her unconventional subject matter; just as Churchill's characters questioned the economic and social systems around them, Churchill herself questioned the legitimacy of linear narrative, the two-act form, and other dramatic customs.

‘Top Girls' was followed by ‘Fen' (1982), ‘Serious Money' (1987), ‘Mad Forest' (1990), and ‘The Skriker' (1997), among other plays.