Dr Stephen Hornby
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Current positions
Lecturer in Drama & Theatre Practice
Biography
Stephen is a multi-award-winning writer, director and researcher. He dramatises archives. He teaches extensively in screenwriting, playwriting, directing and theatre history and supervises individual and group theatre and comedy projects. His current company is Inkbrew Productions, having previously been the Artistic Director of Pagelight Productions, VADA LGBTQ+ Community Theatre and Conical Productions. He is the first National Playwright in Residence to LGBT+ History Month in the UK.
Having completed an M.A. in Playwriting at the University of Salford in 2016, Stephen subsequently secured Arts & Humanities Research Council funding to complete a Ph.D. on dramatising archives which was awarded in 2021. Stephen is under commission from Routledge for a book based on this research entitled "Writing from Archives for Stage & Screen" due in 2026.
He has completed successful commissions for performances based on archive with Islington Museum in London, Bolton Museum and the People’s History Museum in Manchester. Stephen is also interested in writing contemporary drama that explores his previous experiences as a probation officer and social worker in a substance abuse team.
In 2022, he was the writer, producer, and curator of “The Day The World Came To Huddersfield”, a major year-long photographic and performance project funded by the Arts Council England (ACE), Kirklees Council and LGBT+ History Month, celebrating the UK’s first National Pride march which won the inaugural Queer Lit award and the 2022 Greater Manchester Fringe Best Drama award.
In 2022, he accepted a prestigious commission to write a BBC 100 original drama for the stage based on the rediscovered transcript of a lost radio documentary. The play, “The BBC’s First Homosexual” was given a script-in-hand performance as proof of concept. With support from the University of Salford's EDI Fund and the University of Loughborough, funding applications were submitted to turn the piece into a one act play and tour it nationally. Funding from the AHRC has been awarded to do this as part of a wider project called "Re-viewing LGBTQ+ Lives through Broadcasting in Twentieth-century Britain". This project invites a variety of audiences to reassess past and present depictions of LGBTQ+ people in broadcasting through a wide range of mediums: plays, hands-on workshops, roundtables, websites and resources for secondary schools. It enables participants to discover how television and radio represented and moulded the lives of lesbian, gay and trans people during the twentieth century and to explore that enduring legacy into the 21st century.
In addition to touring his play, "The BBC's First Homosexual", throughout LGBT+ History Month (February) 2026, Stephen will be co-facilitating a free public workshop on Dramatising Lost Archives and running a Rapid Response short-play competition that engages with his play and the wider archival record of the 1950s.
Other recent staged work includes:
• “The Adhesion of Love” toured the North West in spring 2019), a #Whitman200 festival play, funded by ACE.
•“The Burnley Buggers’ Ball” toured the North West in 2017 to five star reviews, ACE funded.
•“Die Diana” winner of the 2016 GM Fringe Best Drama Award.
•“The Box of Tricks” toured the North West in autumn 2015, nominated for the Vicky Allen Award, ACE funded.
•“A Very Victorian Scandal” performed as part of the first international festival of LGBT+ History in 2015, ACE funded.
Stephen has a film adaptation of “The Adhesion of Love” in partnership development with Sam Ashby attached and director and is in paid development with Rope Ladder Fiction for a television version of "The Day The World Came To Huddersfield". His short film "Unchechen", which he wrote and directed, won the Wings 2018 award and has been screened across the world, including locally at HOME in Manchester and has been viewed by over 80,000 people online on Vimeo.
Areas of Research
I dramatise archives with a focus on the queer record of the past - a subject often ignored, coded, or wilfully misinterpreted. Existing narrative historicisations frequently impose heteronormative readings and fail to address significant absences.
My scriptwriting acts as practice-led research attempting to address this, investigating the process of writing for stage and screen from archival sources and the mechanisms for so doing. Each project becomes its own inquiry into the dramaturgical, historiographical and expositional strategies involved, with my practice documented to create a methodological record.
I also explore the importance of site in historical drama, the impact it has on marginalised communities, the formal challenges of dramatising history for stage and screen, and the in/significance of authenticity.
KEY TERMS: Playwriting, writing from archives, community engaged theatre, heritage performance, history plays, LGBTQ+ history, queer drama, methodologies for dramatising history, writing for screen, scriptwriting, the use of site in historical drama.
Stephen is the Module Leader of and teaches on: Introduction to Screenwriting, Playwriting, Scriptwriting for TV & Film, Performance Research Project (with Luke Harrison) and Career & Professional Pathways (with Dr Abby Bentham).
He also teaches and supervises on the following modules: The Writer’s Practice (Introduction to Playwriting), Critical & Textual Studies, Theatre & Comedy Projects, Making Performance for Social Media and Post-1950 British Theatre.
Qualifications
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Postgraduate Certificate - Academic Practice
2021 - 2022 -
PhD
2016 - 2021 -
M.A. Playwriting
2014 - 2016 -
M.St. Criminology, Penology + Management
2005 - 2007 -
M.A. Social Work
1994 - 1996 -
B.A. Hons. Drama + Theatre Studies
1987 - 1991