Playwriting

Caroline Bird’s theatre credits include The Trojan Women (Gate Theatre), a radical new version which received wide critical acclaim, Sixty Six Books (Bush Theatre) where she wrote a piece inspired by Leviticus, The Trial of Dennis the Menace (Purcell Room, Southbank Centre), a musical inspired by the Beano, Chamber Piece (Lyric Hammersmith,) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage.)  Chamber Piece recently premiered at Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith as part of their ‘Secret Theatre’ season. In 2012, she was shortlisted for ‘Most Promising New Playwright’ at the Off-West-End Awards. In Christmas 2015, her re-twisted telling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz premiered at Northern Stage, and received a four star review in The Times.

Caroline was one of the ten finalists for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014.

She is currently writing a play about the life of Ellen Wilkinson for Northern Stage due to premier in 2020.

Caroline’s plays can be purchased from Oberon Press.

  • The Trojan Women

  • Chamber Piece

  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  • ChamberPiece

    The war is over. Beyond the prison walls, Troy and its people burn. Inside the prison, the city’s captive women await their fate. But their grief at what has been before will soon be drowned out by the horror of what is to come, as the Greek lust for vengeance consumes everything – man, woman and baby – in its path. This caustic and radical new version of Euripides’ classic tragedy comes from one of the UK’s most exciting young poets, Caroline Bird. It is an intense, gripping look at what happens when the world collapses.

     

    ‘The writing is pin-sharp… does away with reverence, rips up the rulebook’ – The Telegraph

     

    ‘This fine new modern-day version by poet Caroline Bird is set in the mother-and-baby unit of a prison. It’s an ingenious idea of sparkling sensitivity,’ – Evening Standard

     

    Caroline Bird’s new version has both bleak beauty and sardonic humour.’ – The Financial Times

     

    The Trojan Women can be purchased from Oberon Press.
  • ChamberPiece

    In this pitch-black comedy, fatal chemicals combine with ruthless ambition, biscuits, bureaucracy and moral ambiguity. Set in the near future, Britain has reinstated the death penalty. Relatives are weeping in the witness gallery, the journalist clicks her pen and the prison governor gives the thumbs up. Rapist murderer Richard Sanger is strapped to the gurney. Chamber Piece depicts a modern, British execution. How would it look? How would we feel? And what could possibly go wrong?

     

    ‘ an assured, funny and twisty script by the young poet and playwright Caroline Bird…. It leaves you reeling’ – The Times

     

    ‘an extended Orton-esque style joke on the theme of crime and punishment…. There is fun and plenty of provocation before this show gives the subject the philosophical and emotional underpinning it demands’ – Guardian

     

    ‘Bird writes with a fearless wit’ – Independent

     

    ‘compelling, grimly gripping….' Sunday Express

     

    Chamber Piece can be purchased from Oberon Press.
  • ChamberPiece

    An angry orphan escapes a grey town on the back of a hurricane. She lands in a mysterious country of tiny people and wicked witches, where the trees carry bazookas, the crows recite slam poetry, and a mouse can blow your head off. In just one day, this little girl revolutionizes an entire nation. She brings freedom, and colour. Her name is DOROTHY.

     

    The Times ****

     

    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can be purchased from Oberon Press.

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