About the Play:

Top Girls was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

Top Girls has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Female Scenes.

Top Girls is a full-length comedy by Caryl Churchill. To celebrate her promotion at the Top Girls Employment Agency, Marlene throws herself a fanciful dinner party. Each attendee is a historical or fictional woman who brings her own tale of struggle and success. Top Girls is a classic text used at all levels of theatre studies about the political costs of women rising to the top.

Top Girls brings together five historical female characters at a dazzling dinner party in a London restaurant. Marlene has been promoted to managing director of an employment agency and is celebrating. The symbolic luncheon is attended by "top girls" in legend or history who offer perspectives on maternity and ambition, including a Japanese courtesan turned Buddhist nun, Pope Joan, and Dull Gret, a 16th Century woman who battles the devil. In a time warp, these ladies are also her co-workers, clients and relatives. Marlene, like her famous guests, has had to pay a price to ascend from working class roots to the executive suite: she has become, figuratively speaking, a male oppressor and even coaches female clients on adopting odious male traits. Marlene has also abandoned her illegitimate and dull witted daughter. Her emotional and sexual life has become as barren as Lady Macbeth's. Top Girls is consistently voted as one of the best plays of the 20th Century.

Top Girls premiered in 1982 at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 15 female (alternate casting, 7 female with doubling)

What people say:

"A blistering yet sympathetic look at women who achieve success by adopting the worse traits of self made men…. Truly original." — New York Times

"Very funny and provocative…. A mind lifting experience." — New York Post

About the Playwright:

Caryl Churchill is widely recognized as one of the UK's leading playwrights. She was born in London and after the Second World War her family emigrated to Montreal in Canada. She returned to England to attend Oxford University and graduated with a degree in English Literature. One of the most respected dramatists in the English-speaking world, she is an internationally known playwright whose work has been given major international theatrical awards throughout the world.