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KRIS STEWART

Artistic & Executive Director

  • Welcome
  • Welcome continued
  • Welcome
  • BPH Overview
  • BPH Stats
  • Feature Listing
  • BPH Print Media
  • Audio Interview
  • Big Media
  • Curiocity
  • Festivals & Events
  • Festivals Media
  • Big Media
  • Biography
  • Producing & Directing
  • Directing
  • Directing
  • Grid
  • Career Overview
  • Contact
  • Twitter
  • Artshub Article
  • BPH Stats
  • Artistic Director
  • Directing
  • Welcome
  • Welcome continued
  • Welcome
  • BPH Overview
  • BPH Stats
  • Feature Listing
  • BPH Print Media
  • Audio Interview
  • Big Media
  • Curiocity
  • Festivals & Events
  • Festivals Media
  • Big Media
  • Biography
  • Producing & Directing
  • Directing
  • Directing
  • Grid
  • Career Overview
  • Contact
  • Twitter
  • Artshub Article
  • BPH Stats
  • Artistic Director
  • Directing
    • WELCOME

      Kris Stewart is a creative industries executive and artistic leader whose work has been seen through the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

       

      He has had great success as a producer and director taking organizations through periods of change or growth, and in launching new initiatives, such as the founding of a number of key festivals and major events.

    • CAREER SNAPSHOT

      Currently -

      • Artistic Director of Brisbane Powerhouse
      • Director of Brisbane Comedy Festival
      • Founder and Director of MELT Festival
      • President and Director of Red Sand Media Partners (NYC)

      Previously -

      • Founding Creative Director of Curiocity Brisbane (2018 – 2020)
      • Founder and Director of Wonderland Festival (2015 - 2019)
      • Founder and Director of Qld Cabaret Festival (2015 - 2018)
      • Founder and Director of IRL Digital Festival (2015)
      • Director of World Theatre Festival (2014 – 2018)
      • Organisational Producer of the Australian Performing Arts Market (2014 – 2018)
      • Founder and Director of New Musicals Australia (2010 - 2013)
      • Artistic Director and CEO of Festival of Voices (2011 - 2013)
      • Founding Festival Director and CEO of the Sydney Fringe Festival (2009 - 2011)
      • Australian Resident Director of the musical Wicked (2009 – 2010)
      • Founder and Executive Director / CEO of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (2003 - 2008)
      • Executive Director of the National Music Theatre Network (NYC) (2002 - 2003)

       

      Earlier Asst. to Artistic Director at Melbourne Theatre Company; Creative Director at Jacobsen Corp; Director of the Lygon Street Festa, Geelong Waterfront Festival, the Williamstown Festival, the LIVE Youth Festival, VIVA Cultural Diversity Festival, others

    • Artistic Director - BRISBANE POWERHOUSE

      Since 2013, Kris has been Artistic Director of Brisbane Powerhouse, Queensland’s home for contemporary culture, a magnificent power station of the 1920s reborn as an arts centre on the Brisbane River.

      Kris directs a a year-round program featuring events across music, comedy, writers + ideas, dance, film, visual arts, digital arts, theatre and music theatre.

       

      Kris is programming two main stage theatres seating up to 740 and 200 people respectively, and three additional venues that seat 80–180. Brisbane Powerhouse features gallery spaces, two restaurants and bars, corporate facilities and the best river view in Brisbane.

       

      Kris oversees all activity and cultural content that happens in the precinct, which means 350+ shows and more than 1200 performances a year.

    • All Brisbane Powerhouse programs and guides are available online.

       

      Visit HERE at issuu.com for digital versions of all BPH publications created under Kris' stewardship.

    • Some Brisbane Powerhouse results

      Brisbane Powerhouse is the home for living art, ideas and experiences, representing the personality of contemporary Brisbane. Audiences and artists intersect at our heart.

       

      Kris has established a clear set of cultural priorities for the venue, and the results have been clear:

      • 91% growth in local artists (from 737 in 2013 to 1408)
      • 275 World Premieres across all disciplines
      • 81% growth in ticket revenues  (from $3.65m to $6.6m)
      • 83% increase in event and conference revenue (from $1.2m to $2.2m)
      • 41% growth in total ticketed attendance (from 121,514 to 171,314)
      • Three record years in a row for ticket sales, transforming from large deficits to a $327,000 program surplus

      640,000

      visitors annually

      945

      ticketed performances annually

      404

      free performances annually

      380

      corporate and stakeholder events

      40%

      patrons visiting 4+ times a year

      849

      new & emerging artists

    • MEDIA COVERAGE - BRISBANE POWERHOUSE

      "... the Brisbane Comedy Festival set an all-time record of 55,099 attendees, growing 23% in one year. These results are matched by MELT attendances growing more than 25% in 2017, and Wonderland festival playing to 24,980 attendees, its highest in history."

      COURIER MAIL

      IF YOU’VE attended anything at the Brisbane Powerhouse recently you’ll have noticed what a buzz there is about the place. Remember when it was just a derelict blot on the landscape?
       

      Boy have things changed. Along with the Southbank Cultural Complex the Brisbane Powerhouse has really added to the cultural capital of Brisbane and now we couldn’t imagine life without it. And it’s going gangbusters and has just had the greatest quarter in its 16-year history.

       

      MORE

      ARTS HUB

      A foot in New Farm and a foot in New York:

       

      There are a set of values that guide the programming and ethos behind Brisbane Powerhouse. ‘One of [the values] is about having a foot in New Farm and a foot in New York. We want to be really locally connected, while still looking globally with the kinds of things that we are able to exhibit and do,’ said artistic director Kris Stewart.

       

      This value-focused approach has now led Brisbane Powerhouse through its best quarter in a 16-year history. How did it get here and what is the secret behind this success?

       

      MORE

       

      IN QUEENSLAND

      Brisbane Powerhouse boss has a million reasons to smile
       
      Despite having experienced what has unquestionably been the toughest 12 months of his tenure at Brisbane Powerhouse, artistic director Kris Stewart has a million reasons to be happy.
       
      The New Farm venue, which will celebrate its 21st birthday this year, has just sold the millionth ticket since Stewart took over the reins as artistic director in 2013 and as he told InQueensland, it’s a milestone that feels “both meaningful and meaningless at the same time”.
       
       
      MORE
       

      ARTS HUB

      Truly a Powerhouse.

       

      By focusing on the ‘Brisbane’ in Brisbane Powerhouse, the unique arts centre has smashed records in ticket sales, attendances and engagement with local creatives.

       
      For the third consecutive year, Brisbane’s centre for contemporary arts – a former power station constructed in 1928, in the riverside suburb of New Farm – has smashed records, with overall ticket sales hitting the 171,314 mark; an 11% increase on the previous year.
       
      MORE
    • Brisbane powerhouse media

      Here is a cross-section of some print media articles on Kris Stewart and his work at Brisbane Powerhouse.

      • SMH: Brisbane Powerhouse to power ahead under new AD
      • The Australian: Kris Stewart appointed as Artistic Director
      • The Australian: Powerhouse of Iconoclasm
      • Creative Drinks: Kris Stewart.
      • Style Magazine: Five Minutes with Kris Stewart
      • Do Artists Change Minds
      • As our Arts Centres become homes for Festivals

      Plus some articles Kris has written:

      • ArtsHub: Digital Natives and Arts Centres
      • How do you solve a problem like Queensland?

    • Kris Audio interview

      If you're really bored - here is an interview with Kris from 2012, recorded on ABC Radio National, where Kris talks about his past and family.

    • Reopening after COVID-19

      One of the key moments of my career was reopening Brisbane Powerhouse post-COVID19.

      LIGHTS ON - Brisbane Powerhouse reopens

      After being closed for more than 130 days, Brisbane Powerhouse was one of the first venues in the world to reopen, with a curated series of iconic Brisbane companies: Circa, Queensland Ballet, Briefs Factory, Q Music and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. This is that story.

       

      ARTICLES

      Queensland performing artists get back on stage

      Lights are on but things are still getting intimate at Powerhouse

      Love conquers all as Qld Ballet tip-toes its way back to live performance

    • curiocity brisbane

      In 2019, Kris is the inaugural Guest Director of this new major event

      Innovation, Imagination, Invention

      Brisbane's new 2019 event merging tech, innovation, science & arts.

       

      Curiocity Brisbane is a citywide festival for explorers, inventors and creators. It will spark the imagination and inspire people to explore the city and engage with its creativity, rather than observe.

       

      https://curiocitybrisbane.com/

       

      'Curious' new event links art and science across Brisbane - BRISBANE TIMES

    • Festivals and Events

      Kris is arguably one of the most experienced festival and major event creators in the world, with events in numerous countries and regions.

       

      Some highlights of his career include:

      New York Musical Theatre Festival

      2004 - 2008

      As founder and Executive Director of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (www.nymf.org), Kris Stewart oversaw 1197 performances of 133 new musicals that he commissioned, developed and/or produced, as well as 349 other events, 20 venues each year running full-time, and more than 1000 artists, creators and staff working across the event.

       

      “Having a show in the New York Musical Theatre Festival is equivalent to getting an independent film into Sundance.” – Rob Kendt, Newsday

      The Sydney Fringe

      2010, 2011 & 2013

      As the inaugural Artistic Director of The Sydney Fringe, Kris programmed 3000 artists in 700+ performances of more than 250 shows and events in 53 inner city venues, events that were seen by over 100,000 attendees. 

       

      Commissioned by the City of Sydney to create the event, the first year of the Fringe included 76 theatre works, 59 music acts, 30 musicals, 25 visual arts exhibitions, 16 comedies, 13 digital arts pieces, 11 burlesque or circus and 8 dance productions.

      Wonderland

      2014 - 2019

      Wonderland is Brisbane’s end-of-year summer party, a carnival of surprise and delight that transforms Brisbane Powerhouse into a night-time playground as carny folk, circus and street performers, singers, comedians and cabaret stars fill a series on venues, both inside the building and out.

      Melt

      2015 - 2019

      Kris founded Melt in 2015 to be Brisbane's signature annual event celebrating LGBTIQ culture.

       

      Sitting alongside Mardi Gras (Sydney) and Midsumma (Melbourne), Melt featured artists across a range of disciplines, inlcuding theatre, dance, music, visual arts and film (the Brisbane Queer Film Festival).

      IRL

      2015

      The inaugural IRL Digital Festival was presented in May 2015 to more than 20,000 visitors, transforming this iconic building into a pop-up digital playground, where audiences of young and old were able to immerse themselves in interactive digital art, technology-based performance, retro gaming culture and the latest in virtual reality and transmedia content.

      The Festival of Voices

      2010 - 2012

      The Festival of Voices is Australia’s premier festival celebrating the vocalist and the power of song, showcasing a range of artistic disciplines, including choir and ensemble singing, spoken word, cabaret, debate, poetry, storytelling and hiphop.

       

      Kris was hired by Events Tasmania to run the festival in 2011, and oversaw a 54% increase in ticket sales, with 90% of performances playing to capacity.

      WTF

      2014 & 2016

      Running over 11 days in February, WTF is Brisbane Powerhouse’s iconic global contemporary performance event where culture and spectacle collide.

       

      Featuring works that challenge the traditional definitions of theatre, World Theatre Festival brings together a worldly ensemble of irreverent, iconoclastic performance artists and runs alongside the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) in 2016 and 2018. 

      APAM

      2014, 2016 & 2018

      The Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) is Australia’s leading, internationally focused industry event for contemporary performing arts, and has been produced by Brisbane Powerhouse since 2014.

       

      APAM offers Australian and New Zealand performing artists and companies full performances, excerpt and pitch sessions, in front of national and international presenters, agents and influencers.

      Queensland Cabaret Festival

      2014 - 2016

      Produced by Brisbane Powerhouse, the Queensland Cabaret Festival is a multivenue event, happening across the major Brisbane venues and key regional centres.

       

      It partners with significant international festivals in the region to tour the best cabaret and music acts in the world

       

       

      Brisbane Comedy Festival

      2014 - 2019

      The biggest selling festival in Queensland, the Brisbane Comedy Festival is a big populist event across all of the powerhouse venues.

       

      Dozens of comics are featured across a calendar month, and it fits beautifully into Australia's autumn comedy season.

    • FESTIVALS media

      Print articles on some of Kris work on festivals

      New York Musical Theatre Festival

      • SMH: It's a Manhattan takeover, and everybody's singing.
      • LA Times: The Sundance of Musical Theatre. By Julia Klein
      • Theatremania.com: I wish to go to the Festival
      • American Theatre Magazine: The Rise of Festivals: The Networking Life
      • Stage Directions Magazine: Rebooting the Musical.
      • Downstage Center. The American Theatre Wing, in association with XM Satellite Radio, presents Downstage Center a weekly theatrical interview show, featuring the top artists working in theatre both on and Off-Broadway and around the country.

      The Sydney Fringe

      • SMH: Acting on the edge
      • The Australian: Return of the alternative
      • ArtsHub: Over 100,000 attend first Sydney Fringe
      • Stage Whispers: Kris Stewart - from new musicals to the Sydney Fringe

      Festival of Voices

      • The Weekly Review: Kris Stewart, Voice of Voices
      • AussieTheatre.com: Kris Stewart's top picks
    • Griffith University Occasional Speech

      November 2019.

       

      Kris giving the occasional speech to the Arts and Law students graduating from Griffith University.

    • Personal CAREER NARRATIVE

      I am a creative industry executive and artistic leader, with a key focus on cultural production, organisational growth and launching major events. Currently, I am the Artistic Director of The Brisbane Powerhouse, Queensland’s home for contemporary cultural practice.
       
      Here, I lead a team of 42 staff as we program two main stage theatres and three additional venues, as well as an outdoor venue and a venue-wide gallery space, and are visited by more than 700,000 people a year, experiencing 1000+ ticketed performances, 145 free events and a further 380+ corporate events.
       
      In my eight years as its artistic leader, more than 1 million people have bought almost $50m worth of tickets to Brisbane Powerhouse projects, and under my guidance we’ve achieved:
       
      • 91% growth in local artists (from 737 in 2013 to 1408)
      • 275 World Premieres across all disciplines
      • 81% growth in ticket revenues (from $3.65m to $6.6m)
      • 83% increase in event and conference revenue (from $1.2m to $2.2m)
      • 41% growth in total ticketed attendance (from 121,514 to 171,314)
      • Three record years in a row for ticket sales, transforming from large deficits to a $327,000 program surplus
       
      While leading Brisbane Powerhouse, I have had the opportunity to launch a number of significant events.
       
      In December 2014, I launched WONDERLAND, Brisbane’s festival of circus, sideshow and spectacle, featuring 29 shows over 10 days, 81 performances, and more than 120 individual artists. We followed this in February 2015 with MELT, Queensland’s major event celebrating LGBTI+ culture and creators. Later that year, we launched IRL Digital Festival, a new event celebrating the convergence between live arts and digital and gaming culture.
       
      I’ve also enjoyed continuing the legacy of existing events at Brisbane Powerhouse, such as the Brisbane Comedy Festival (which has grown 40% under my direction, from 44,447 attendees to a record of 62,278), and hosting the Australian Performing Arts Market, the World Theatre Festival, World Press Photo and Brisbane Portrait Prize.
       
      During my time, Brisbane Powerhouse has featured indigenous artists such as Hot Brown Honeys, Ilbijerri Theatre, the First Nation’s Peoples Party, and has made a strong commitment to the premiering of new first nations work, including Chasing Smoke by Casus Circus, Songlines, visual arts commissions by Rachel Sarra and Tori-Jay Mordey and many others. In July 2020, Brisbane Powerhouse was once of the first venues globally to reopen following the COVID-19 pandemic, with a program featuring iconic Brisbane companies called Lights On. Over five weeks, we featured groups such as Circa, Queensland Ballet, Briefs Factory International, QMusic and the QSO.
       
      I’ve always found great joy in beginning new initiatives, especially major cultural events.
       
      In 2019 and 2020 I served as inaugural Creative Director of Curiocity Brisbane, Queensland’s premier event for technology and creativity, and prior to that I was Artistic Director and Chief Executive of The Festival of Voices, the national festival celebrating the instrument of voice, and in 2010, I founded The Sydney Fringe, as its CEO and Festival Director.
       
      At the Festival of Voices, we received a series of acknowledgments for its impact on Tasmanian culture and tourism, including the 2010 and 2011 Australian Business and Arts Foundation (AbaF) Awards, 2012 State Winner as Best Major Event for the Qantas Australian Tourism Awards, and 2013 Australia Day Award (Tas) for “Best Major Festival or Event”.
       
      The Sydney Fringe launched as a significant cultural event for the NSW alternative and independent arts sector from day one, with 700+ performances of more than 250 shows and events in 53 inner city venues, events that we’re seen by over 100,000 attendees.
       
      After receiving the Sir Keith Murdoch Prize for Leadership and Innovation and a 2000 Churchill Fellowship for my work in new work development, I spent seven years in New York City, where I initially served as Executive Director of the National Music Theatre Network and consulting director for the Theatre for the American Musical, before becoming the founding Executive Director and CEO of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), the world’s largest annual musical theatre event.
       
      Heralded by the New York Times as “2004′s rookie of the year in NYC theater” and Time Out New York as “the Sundance for musical theatre”, the New York Musical Theatre Festival featured 1197 performances of 133 new musicals that I commissioned, developed and/or produced, with a key highlight being the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal.
       
      At NYMF I won the $100,000 Jujamcyn Theaters Prize, which is given annually to an international cultural organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent for the performing arts. While in NYC I founded my production company Red Sand Media Partners, which was a producer of the TONY nominated and Obie and Drama Desk award winning Broadway musical [title of show]: A New Musical.
       
      I returned to Australia in 2009 to be the Australian resident director of the musical Wicked, before returning to the festival, major event and cultural industry work that I loved. I feel fortunate that my career has allowed me to explore my interest in both deep and genuine collaborations, and international work.
       
      This has meant partnering and co-presenting with such international arts venues as The Barbican, The Southbank Centre UK, The Taipei Digital Arts Centre, MONA, The London Natural History Museum, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, ARS Electronica, The BANFF Centre, and Joes Pub – The Public Theatre NYC.
       
      At Brisbane Powerhouse, we have partnered with events such as The Melbourne International Comedy Festival; The Edinburgh Festival and Fringe; The Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Auckland Festivals; Sydney Mardi Gras and Midsumma; The Dublin Fringe; The Melbourne & Sydney Writers Festivals and The Brighton Digital Festival.

    • EXECUTIVE Producing

      Kris has directed and produced a number of projects, both in the commercial and non-profit spheres.  They include:

      Red Hook

      Available on Amazon

      Kris founded Red Sand Media Partners, where he produced with his partners feature film Red Hook, a teen thriller distributed by Phase 4 Films.  Set in the streets on NYC, Red Hook is about a college scavenger hunt where one of the participants is setting new rules.

      [Title of Show]: a new musical

      On Broadway, at the Lyceum Theater

      On Broadway, RSMP produced the TONY nominated and Obie and Drama Desk award winning musical [title of show]. [title of show] is a musical about two nobodies named Hunter and Jeff who decide to write a completely original musical - and the show is from that moment until the night the audiencve is there with them.

      New Musicals Australia

      2011/12 - an initiative of the Australia Council

      Now based at the Hayes Theatre, Kris was the founder and inaugural director of New Musicals Australia, an initiative dedicated to the production of original music theatre in Australia.  It focussed on providing writers and composers with the opportunity to have their scripts and songs workshopped by professionals and presented to industry peers.

      Sweet

      2014 to 2016

      Sweet is annual hand-curated premiering seasons of independent performance that Kris produces and presents at Brisbane Powerhouse, identifying the best of emerging independent companies and giving them the opportunity to have their work supported and seen by a wider arts audience.

    • DIRECTING

      Kris has directed more than 60 productions across his career, with a focus on new work and music theatre. Here are some links to production photos.

    • SWEET CHARITY

      Brisbane Powerhouse, 2019

      COUPLING

      Melt Festival, 2018

      JOH FOR PM

      QMF, 2018

      WEST SIDE STORY

      Qld Con, 2018

      BOYS OF SONDHEIM

      Melt Festival, 2017

    • KISS ME KATE

      QPAC

      ORDINARY DAYS

      Tas Theatre Co

      JC SUPERSTAR

      HOTA

      VOICES OF VICE

      Festival of Voices

      THE JOURNEY GIRL

      Tas Theatre Co

      TROCADERO

      Sydney Festival

      INTO THE WOODS

      Capitol Theatre

      SKYLIGHT

      Melb Theatre Co

      AND THE WORLD GOES ROUND

      Chapel off Chapel

      LIFE'S A CIRCUS

      Theatreworks

      HOW TO SUCCEED

      The Production Company

      RAGS

      WAAPA

    • Notable service and Awards

      Board Service

      2020 – current: PAC Australia Board; peak industry body for Live Performance venues
      2021 – current: Stage Queensland Executive Committee; representative body for QLD venues
      2020 – current: Sunshine Coast Arts Advisory Board
      2014 – 2021: The Queensland Conservatorium Advisory Board
      2017 – 2020: The QUT Creative Industries Advisory Board

      Awards

      2012: Nominee for “Best Festival or Major Event” at Qantas Australian Tourism Awards

      2010 & 2011: Two-time Australian Business and Arts Foundation (AbaF) Award Winner

      2006: Jujamcyn Theatres Award for outstanding development of creative talent for the theater

      2003: The Ockrent Fellowship (NYC)

      2001: Gilbert Spottiswood Churchill Fellowship

      2000: Sir Keith Murdoch Prize for Leadership and Innovation

      Alumnus

      2012: Australia Council Emerging Leaders Development Program

      2007: New York Commercial Theatre Institute (www.livebroadway.com), Weisenfeld Scholar

      2003: The Lincoln Center Directors Lab

      1994 – 1995: West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Grad Dip (Arts - directing).

      Peer Assessments

      2015 - 2017: Australia Council and Australian Department for the Arts

      2014 - 2018: Arts Queensland and Australian Performing Arts Market

      2007 & 2008: The Macarthur Fellowship judging committees

      2010: The Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize

      2013 - 2019: The Helpmann Awards (theatre, cabaret and comedy panels)

      International Exchanges and Showcases

      2019: International Arts Exchange (Dublin Theatre Festival, Ireland)

      2015 – 2019: The British Council Showcase (Edinburgh)

      2014 – 2016: PAMS (South Korea)

      2016 – 2018: Shanghai International Arts Fair (China)

      2018: Luminato (Canada)

      2017: CINARS (Canada)

      2017: National Arts Council showcase (Singapore)

      2016: Under the Radar and the Assoc of Performing Arts Presenters conference (USA)

      2016: Taiwan Focus

      2015: Performing Arts Assoc NZ showcase (New Zealand),

      2001 – 2007: National Alliance for Musical Theatre Conference

      External Engagements

      Educator
      CGO Institute, Australia Institute of Music, WAAPA, the NYU/Tisch School of Drama, Griffth University, QUT, Federation University, Monash University, and others.

       

      Keynote Speaker
      Live Performance Australia, UK Music Theatre Conference, NYU/Tisch, PAANZ, American Theatre Wing, League of American Theatres and Producers, Stage Queensland, and others.

    • Contact Kris

      This is direct to Kris' personal email, so shoot him a note!

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