University playwright hits the Big Apple

An award-winning playwright who has just returned to the UK from Australia to lecture at Edge Hill University will have one of his productions shown in New York.

Carl Caulfield joined the University in September as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing after spending more than 20 years in Australia where he taught Drama and was a co-director, with his wife Felicity Biggins, of Stray Dogs Theatre Company.

He has spent his life in the theatre as an actor, director and playwright, with many prizes under his belt for his imaginative work.

Now his latest play Being Sellers - a 60-minute monologue about Peter Sellers to mark the 30^th anniversary of the actor's death - has received such rave reviews in the industry that it moves to New York later this month for the Brits Off-Broadway season.

"It's fantastic to know that one of my plays will be shown in New York," said Carl. "Although I've worked in America I've never had anything shown before so I'm pretty excited by the prospect."

From an early age, Carl, who was born in Wigan, has always been interested in the theatre. He studied English and Drama at the University of Leeds where, in his own words, he "got the bug for it", and went into acting. But he'd always harboured ambitions to become a writer and his first play The Private Life of Claude Welch impressed his tutors in Leeds so much that they told him he should be a playwright.

"Although the two roles seem very different they are actually similar," explained Carl. "When you're writing plays you are thinking about the performer and so you know what they can work with, what the audience will like, how to plot and pitch a script and you learn the structure of writing for the stage. Acting is a great way to discover writing for theatre."

Despite producing more than 20 plays, he still gets the same buzz from that first time he saw his script come alive on stage.

"I'm almost obsessed by it," he said. "My mind is always ticking over for new ideas. They can come from anything from images, objects, or a word. One time, I was at a dinner party and heard that a friend and his wife had decided to separate but had called in a mutual friend to come over to their house when they split the furniture and other assets to make sure everything was done fairly. Immediately I knew it would make a great play. I called it These Foolish Things and even though I never knew the outcome of what had happened I turned it into a dark comedy."

After enjoying a successful career Down Under, Carl decided it was time to return to his roots.

"It may sound unusual for somebody to come back after immigrating to Australia," said Carl "but I just had a gut instinct to come back to my roots. I saw the job for Edge Hill University and was really drawn to the place because it has a great reputation and a welcoming environment. It's also a great base for the many theatre venues across the north-west.

"Although I've only been here a couple of months I'm really enjoying it and trying to absorb the differences in cultures because I've been away from the UK for nearly 25 years. It certainly seems familiar and teaching the students is very similar, just the accents are different."