Steve Gilroy

Associate Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

Steve is Creative Director in the School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries at Northumbria University and Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance. As a published and award winning writer and director, Steve produces work on both national and international stages. He spent four years as a director with the Royal Court Theatre in London working with some of our most prominent contemporary playwrights and has successfully collaborated with artists, musicians and designers, including Richard Dawson, Gary McCann, Kate Craddock, Jeremy Bradfield and Tanya Axford. As Associate Director at Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne (2009 – 2018), Steve worked as playwright, director and dramaturg, and directing for companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Steve’s work has attracted critical acclaim and awards including a Fringe First, the Stage Award for Best Ensemble the Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe award and a nomination for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, for works including Motherland, The Prize, In the Middle of the West and Hand me Down. Steve is a board member of the Lawnmowers Theatre Company (an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation) and Director of Murmur Theatre Company.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Steve is a practice researcher specialising in the field of auto-biographical/biographical, politically engaged documentary and verbatim theatre. Many of his projects relate to human conflict and trauma and these include: the impact of the Iraq and Afghan wars on the domestic world of working class families from North East England (Motherland, 2009), disenfranchised olive farmers from the Palestinian West Bank (Facts on the Ground, 2010), the human consequences of the Euro Crisis (States of Descent, 2013), the experiences of those living with dementia (Each Piece, 2017), and the communities of Oklahoma City living with the legacy of America’s largest domestic terror attack in Oklahoma City in 1993 (In the Middle of the West, 2018).

Steve is also collaborator/writer/director of Interactive performance texts that combine documentary sources, recorded testimony with fictional and non-fictional texts. Examples include, Hand me Down, 2011 the GB Project, 2013-2014 (both created collaboratively with Dr Kate Craddock) and his latest project, Angel, where Steve is collaborating with learning and non-learning disabled performers.