Jamie Hornsby is a multi-award-winning playwright, performer, composer, photographer and emerging screenwriter. He is the winner of two AWGIE Awards, including the prestigious David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre, as well as the Frank Ford Memorial Young Achiever Award at the Ruby Awards, South Australia’s premier arts and culture ceremony. He has been described in Stage Whispers as “a major voice in Australian playwriting” and The Barefoot Review as “one of the most promising young playwrights in the country today.”
His first play, because there was fire, won Best New Work at the Newcastle Fringe Awards before embarking on an multi-state tour. Jamie won the 2018 Flinders University/State Theatre Company South Australia Young Playwrights Award for his play, ASCEND, and his play Python was Runner-Up for the Australian Theatre Festival NYC’s New Play Award, and a finalist in the Stoddart Playwrights Award and Shane and Cathryn Brennan Prize for Playwriting. In 2024, Python received three Off-Broadway staged readings as part of the 2024 Australian Theatre Festival NYC, and was recently shortlisted for Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Playwrights Award.
Jamie has been commissioned multiple times by Jopuka Productions, with his play The Boys on the Bus being remounted at Australian Theatre For Young People’s Rebel Theatre in Sydney. He has written for State Theatre Company South Australia/ActNow Theatre’s Decameron 2.0 project, and been commissioned by South Australian Youth Arts for We’ve Got All The Time In The World* (Terms and Conditions Apply). He was the first Australian participant in Sala Beckett’s International Emerging Playwrights Workshop in Barcelona, where his play All of It was translated and performed in Catalan.
Jamie is the co-founder of acclaimed independent company Madness of Two, alongside his frequent collaborator Ellen Graham. Their play, Claire Della and the Moon, won two AWGIE awards and was presented at the 2023 DreamBIG Children’s Festival and AWESOME Arts Festival. Jamie’s original musical score for Claire Della and the Moon is available on Apple Music and Spotify. Madness of Two’s latest work, Starweaver, premiered in June 2024 as part of State Theatre Company South Australia’s STATESIDE program to rave reviews and a sold out season.