Carl Caulfield play Creativity at Civic Theatre is a satire on university politics

It's not just coffee for Caulfield, it's a writing zone, a field of dreams in the corner of a cafe, where he creates stories, possibilities.

Later in the day, he will bring structure to those first words in his home office, shaping them into a play if they work.

"Whether you can say writing is a complete pleasure, that would be disingenuous," he says over his own house-made coffee in his Cooks Hill home. "Because it's sometimes very challenging. I think I do have a passion for it ...

"I think you have to write in a state of tension. To me, it's not something you do in a relaxed state, you have to have a bit of tension about what you are doing. It's kind of a balancing act between rational and irrational forces, which you try to kind of control, I suppose."

Next week, Caulfield's latest play, Creativity, opens at the Civic Playhouse on July 8 for a two-week run. Creativity is a co-production between Civic Theatre Newcastle and Stray Dogs Theatre Company.

The cast for the satire includes Mick Byrne, Khalil Khay, Lou Chapman, Nola Wallace and Melinda Smith.

The description of the play on Caulfield's Stray Dogs Theatre Company says: "A recent purge of academics and courses at a Conservatorium of Music at an Australian university has left the remaining staff and their students demoralised, their only life raft the joy they find in making music."

Of course, Caulfield reminds me in our conversation, the satirical play is fiction. But, he is also realistic.

"Audiences in Newcastle will certainly be able to recognise some of the issues and themes," he says. "I'm not just being coy. It is fictional."

The play has a music emsemble performing with it, and features some technology wrinkles new to Caulfield. But the soul of the play is clear: the humanities are under attack in the university system.

"The play is about the way in which the arts have been starved of oxygen, to the point where they can't exist," Caulfied says. "And people come in and say, 'Oh look, you're not doing very well'.

"It's a bit like, 'because you've starved us of oxygen, what did you expect? Why don't you invest in us a little more? Put your money where your mouth is?' I've been feeling these sorts of things bubbling inside of me as I look around and respond."

Caulfield is not only a playwright and director; he has also been a university lecturer in drama and film.

"It's not about this [Newcastle] university or the one down the road, but I know it will resonate," he says. "And let me just say, it is on the side of the passionate teachers and I think I know where I'm coming from. If there are criticisms, it's probably more towards poor management, bad leadership, including vice chancellors.

"And I'm quite willing to have a go at those people because my job as a playwright, just as if I were a comedian, is to go for those who have power and be on the side of those who are victims.

"That's the job, that comes with the territory, if that makes sense."

One of the cool props in the play is sitting Caulfield's lounge room. It's a model of the (fictional, of course) Mozart Hub, made by the play's set designer Geoff Overmyer.

Caulfield gives me the pitch for the Mozart Hub: "The whole idea is we can use this hub to create opportunities for students, but more importantly, it's a source of revenue, where we have business people, empowerment labs, solution labs and we can analyse the DNA of Mozart's genius and sell it out there to all the parents who want a little bit of Mozart genius."

Caulfield's play covers a lot of territory.

"My play is trying to deal with not just with issues such as the corporatisation of universities, this kind of utilitarianism that's crept in over many years, but it's also looking at the impact of the digital and this global thing in universities now where it's becoming very much about this interest in the digital... You just hear that they are becoming less interested in the written word.

"I'm talking about inside the teaching institutions by the way. They are more likely to be interested in the digital areas like virtual technology than say drama - some things which involve the community working in the third dimension."

Caulfield's best hope: the play will start a conversation about these issues.