Top Girls
by Caryl Churchill

At some point, every woman asks: What is the price of success?

Lady Nijo was the most desired courtesan of thirteenth-century Japan- until she lost the Emperor's favor and wandered the land for twenty years. Joan mastered philosophy so well that the early Catholic church elected her Pope - until evidence that she was not quite like the other holy fathers revealed itself in the most inconvenient way.

When they join a Victorian adventurer, a Chaucerian peasant girl, and Breugel's pillager of Hell, each has a story to tell. Gathered in a posh restaurant in Margaret Thatcher's London, they join Marlene to celebrate her triumph - promotion to managing director at the 'Top Girls' employment agency. But what did Marlene leave behind on her own hard slog to the top?

British playwright Caryl Churchill has played a leading role in shaping our contemporary theatrical landscape. Her work couples a commitment to socialist-feminist politics with bold experimentation in theatrical form. She was Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court and spent much of the 1970s and 1980s working with the theater groups 'Joint Stock' and 'Monstrous Regiment.' Recent plays include Far Away (2000), A Number (2002), and a new version of August Strindberg's A Dream Play (2005).