Top Girls

This whip-smart masterpiece explores female power and success versus family and parenthood – can we have it all?

12 Feb - 24 Mar 2018

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House

The Play

★★★★★ Time Out Sydney
★★★★ ½ Daily Review
★★★★½ Sunday Telegraph
★★★★ Audrey Journal

Sydney Theatre Company presents

TOP GIRLS

By Caryl Churchill

It takes a hard head to smash a glass ceiling

Marlene is unstoppable. She’s been promoted to the top job at a London employment agency and it’s time to celebrate! Her dinner party with famous female figures from throughout history is one of playwright Caryl Churchill’s wittiest and best-known scenes.

But Marlene’s success is soon undermined by the compromises she’s made and the past she’s left behind. Privilege comes at a cost – but she might not be the one who picks up the tab.

STC favourite Helen Thomson (After Dinner) makes a very welcome return to our stage in this modern classic, widely considered Churchill’s masterpiece. Whip-smart, funny, and ultimately very moving, Top Girls was written in London in 1982, with the cut-throat era of Thatcherism only just beginning. It asks questions about equality, feminism, wealth and family that are as pressing now as they were back then.

Resident Director Imara Savage has assembled a suitably fearless all-female ensemble – Paula Arundell (The Bleeding Tree), Kate Box (ABC’s Rake), Michelle Lim Davidson (ABC’s Utopia), Claire Lovering (Dinner), Heather Mitchell (Cloud Nine) and Contessa Treffone (All My Sons) – to bring this high-octane production to the spectacular Sydney Opera House stage.

“Intent on breaking rules... Churchill sees the theatre as an open frontier where lives can be burst apart and explored.”
The New York Times

Duration 2hrs 30mins (including interval)
Content warning Strong language, adult themes, the use of haze, complete blackout in the theatre and herbal cigarettes.

Production Patrons The Donor Syndicate

Ticket information

2018 Season Tickets (packs of 6 or more plays)

Save at least 20% on full price single tickets, access the best available seats and get a lot of exclusive benefits all year. More info and bookings.

Season Ticket prices
Saturday evening A Reserve $86
Adult A Reserve $82
Concession $65
Seniors cardholder $74
Preview $64
Under 30 $64

Single tickets

Single ticket prices
Saturday evening $108
Adult $103
Seniors cardholder $93
Concession $82
Under 30 $81
Preview $81
Group bookings (10+ people) $87

Prices correct at the time of publication and subject to change without notice. Exact prices will be displayed with seat selection.

Transaction fees may apply
Season Ticket bookings (packs of 6 or more plays): no fees
Single ticket bookings: $7.50 online; $8 telephone; $0 Box Office counter

Dates

Previews 12 Feb 2018 – 15 Feb 2018
Season  17 Feb 2018 – 24 Mar 2018

Performance start times
Preview performances 8pm
In-season evening performances Mon & Tue 6.30pm; Wed – Sat 8pm 
Matinee performances Wed 1pm; Sat 2pm

Duration 2hrs 30mins (including interval)

Pricing and ticket information

2018 Season Tickets (packs of 6 or more plays)

Save at least 20% on full price single tickets, access the best available seats and get a lot of exclusive benefits all year. More info and bookings.

Season Ticket prices
Saturday evening A Reserve $86
Adult A Reserve $82
Concession $65
Seniors cardholder $74
Preview $64
Under 30 $64

Single tickets

Single ticket prices
Saturday evening $108
Adult $103
Seniors cardholder $93
Concession $82
Under 30 $81
Preview $81
Group bookings (10+ people) $87

Prices correct at the time of publication and subject to change without notice. Exact prices will be displayed with seat selection.

Authorised ticket sellers
The only authorised ticket sellers for this event are Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Opera House. Only tickets purchased by authorised agencies should be considered valid and reliable. More info

Transaction fees may apply
Season Ticket bookings (packs of 6 or more plays): no fees
Single ticket bookings: $7.50 online; $8 telephone; $0 Box Office counter

Concession, seniors and under 30 tickets
Suitable and valid identification must be provided for collection of tickets and at the venue, such as your concession or proof of age card. Alternatively, you may email a copy of your identification to [email protected]. Please quote your booking reference number.

Access requirements
For specific access requirements, please call Box Office on (02) 9250 1777 to book your seats.

Schools Days

Wed 28 Feb 11.30am
Wed 14 Mar 11.30am

Our Education program

Director Imara Savage
Set Designer David Fleischer
Costume Designer Renée Mulder
Lighting Designer Damien Cooper
Composer & Sound Designer Max Lyandvert
Assistant Director Madeleine Humphreys

With
Paula Arundell, Kate Box, Michelle Lim Davidson, Claire Lovering, Heather Mitchell, Helen Thomson, Contessa Treffone

Marketing image Rene Vaile
Production photos Brett Boardman 

This listing is updated as cast and creatives are confirmed in the lead-up to the production, and if there are any changes to the team. Ensure you have the most up-to-date information about each play by opting in to our enewsletter.

The critics are saying...

“Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls remains one of the greatest plays written about women’s rights, the patriarchy and the intersection of same with social class. This new Sydney Theatre Company staging, led by director Imara Savage, sets the bar high and early for the best production of 2018.” ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Time Out Sydney

“Savage’s work here is exceptional – her keen eye and sixth-sense for interior momentum are enough to make her one of Australia’s greatest working directors, but she inspires greatness in her actors and collaborators too – encouraging them to greater heights.” ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Time Out Sydney

“Top Girls is an ­unmissable tour de force.” The Australian

“[Kate] Box and [Helen] Thomson together offer the kind of greatness that suspends time in the theatre.” The Australian

“[Top Girls] still packs a punch in this superb Sydney Theatre Company production” ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Sunday Telegraph

“Each woman is strong and celebrated in her own way” ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Daily Review

"Imara Savage has directed with confidence this strong cast." Sydney Morning Herald 

“Top Girls is an engrossing classic of modern theatre in a superb new production.” Australian Stage

“Brilliant. Beautiful. As relevant now as it was forty years ago.” Stage Noise

“This is the funniest, most emotionally persuasive and handsome of the productions of the play I’ve seen.” ★ ★ ★ ★ Audrey Journal

“… This is a dazzling production that leaves you all-too-painfully aware of how strongly the issues in it still resonate more than three decades on, while the devastating emotion of the final scene is hard to shake. Unmissable.” ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Limelight Magazine

“Savage's excellent cast present Churchill's complex dialogue, which includes a great degree of talking over each other, with a natural ease.” Broadway World

Praise for Caryl Churchill's Top Girls

"Churchill's Top Girls was first staged in 1982, but its central issues of women's battles for success, or even equality in employment, are frighteningly current." Herald Sun  

"An intellectual and emotionally fraught journey that searches deep into the meaning of material success…. Ideas fly thick and fast… very powerful." Australian Stage 

"What can equality possibly mean if the glamorous board room success of a few does nothing to change the lives of the many? Churchill exposes these questions with a text that remains formally audacious, and which made me reflect how slight the ambitions of most contemporary plays are. She combines a sense of total formal freedom with an almost icy control of her metaphors." Theatre Notes, Alison Croggon

"Vivid timeliness, in a world where isolated female success still obscures the plight of the majority." The Guardian

"It’s this abiding darkness that gives Top Girls an affecting charge that transcends its schematic side. As always Ms. Churchill is merciless in pointing out that everything in this life is scary, including the landscape of roads taken and not taken that every woman faces, no matter what century she’s from." The New York Times  

Insight Events

We offer a range of free and ticketed events designed to give you further insight into our plays. Find out more about our Insight Events.

Pre-season Briefing
Mon 29 Jan 7pm
Wharf 1 Theatre
FREE. Book tickets.

Night with the Actors
Mon 12 Mar post-show
Mon 19 Mar post-show

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