Kris Stewart is the founding director of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), the world's largest annual musical theatre event. Through his production company Red Sand Media Partners, Kris is one the producers of the TONY nominated and Obie and Drama Desk award winning [title of show], which opened on Broadway July 17th, 2008 at the Lyceum Theater, and the feature film Red Hook, a teen thriller shot in NYC in 2008 for ‘09 release. He currently serves as Resident Director of the musical Wicked in Australia for the Gordon/Frost Organization.

As Executive Director of NYMF, Kris Stewart oversaw 1197 performances of 133 new musicals that he commissioned, developed and/or produced, as well as 349 other events including a slate of readings, workshops, concerts, parties, special events, seminars and master classes. Kris oversees almost 20 venues each year running full-time, with more than 1000 artists, creators and staff working across the event.

NYMF runs the theatrical gamut from hip hop and freestyle rap to dance musicals, from traditional musical comedies to edgy satires to epic dramas and has been the launching pad for more than a dozen commercial productions in its three-year history, generating off-Broadway and international runs for Altar Boyz, The Big Voice: God or Merman?, Captain Louie, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Gutenberg! the Musical!, Nerds:// A Musical Software Satire, Shout! The Mod Musical and [title of show]. Kris has commissioned the creation of a number of new musicals, including Common Grounds and Platforms (two new dance musicals), Wrong Number (a musical created through improvisation, in collaboration with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater), the Guerilla Musicals Project (spontaneous musicals that would interrupt events across NYC), Web Site Story (a user generated musical, created through online collaboration) and Innovative Leisure (a musical on the rise and fall of Atari, in collaboration with the Ensemble Studio Theatre). The Festival has featured premieres by Pulitzer finalists and Tony Award winners alongside the work of new unknown voices, and has featured numerous international co-productions with Australian, Canadian and English companies, and collaborations with the UCBT, ASCAP, EST, the Drama Dept., Ars Nova, BMI, 92nd St Y, Museum of TV and Radio and others.

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 plays to more than 90% attendance, with the 2006 festival attendance increasing by more than 65% to 40,000+ attendees. Kris has built a loyal and young audience base (>50% aged under 40) through an innovative programming and marketing strategy, and though still a young institution, Kris has grown the organization’s income by more than 35% each year, creating a committed donor and sponsor base (including partners such as Cadillac, Virgin, Microsoft, the Village Voice, Time Out NY, Playbill and many, many others) that has guaranteed the future viability of his organization. Kris has delivered a budget surplus for the five years of his management, and has grown the budget from <$250,000, to a core operating budget of $950,000, with additional $650,000 of inkind sponsorships and $600,000 in co-production commitments.

Kris and NYMF won the $100,000 Jujamcyn Theaters Prize, which is given annually to an international theatre organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent for the theatre. Further to this, his work has been recognised with the 2000 Sir Keith Murdoch Prize for Leadership and Innovation and a 2001 Churchill Fellowship, as well as Green Room Awards and Helpmann Awards and other prizes, including Best Production of 1996 for Skylight, and the SANTOS Emerging Director Prize (1996) and nominations for the Ockrent Fellowship (NYC) and the Young Australian of the Year. Kris is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theatre's Director's Lab and the Commercial Theater Institute (NYC), and completed his post-graduate study at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (“Australia’s Julliard” – American GQ). He has been a guest speaker or panellist for Opera America, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, The 2008 UK Musical Theatre Conference, The Entertainment Industry Expo NYC, NYU/Tisch School of Drama, NY Theatre Resources, The American Theatre Wing, the League of American Theatres and Producers and the NYC Emerging Artist and Producers panel, and he has been part of the nominating and judging committees for the Macarthur Fellowship, The Victorian Premier's Literary Prize (musical theatre) and Dance Break.

Prior to NYMF, Kris was Executive Director of the National Music Theatre Network and consulting director for the Theatre for the American Musical. He held senior positions at many Australian companies, including acting as Associate Director for The Kevin Jacobsen Corporation (Australia), where he was Resident Director on shows that included Sisterella, Gael Force Dance, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Chess and Jekyll and Hyde. He directed How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for The Production Company (Australia’s Encores Series) at Melbourne's State Theatre, Treemonisha (State Opera of South Australia), Skylight for Melbourne Theatre Company and was Resident Director for A Little Night Music (MTC and International Management Group), and Wicked (GFO).

Among the 30+ other shows Kris has directed include the new musicals Prodigal and Virgin Wars (by Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank for the Next Wave Festival), Anthony Crowley's The Journey Girl, Anthony Costanzo's Life's a Circus and the workshops of The Jackal and Rooftop at Playbox, Carved in Air for Handspan Visual Theatre and the Fluteplayer's Song for the Gateway Playhouse (NJ), as well as Rags, Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down, My One and Only, Into The Woods, Pal Joey, Merrily We Roll Along, Extremities, The Shrinking Ledge, Kander and Ebb’s And The World Goes ‘Round, The Fantasticks and Guys and Dolls, amongst others.

Experienced in the particular demands of major event and festival production, Kris’ work on NYMF is an extension from his experience with other major events, including the Australian Ballet’s Ballet in the Park, Madison Square Garden/Radio City Entertainment’s A Christmas Carol, the Lygon Street Festa (over 300,000 attendees), the Myer Music Bowl Millennium Concert, the Waterfront Festival, the Williamstown Festival, The LIVE Youth Festival, the VIVA Multicultural Festival and numerous outdoor concerts and events. In 2000, Kris founded The Festa Group, which became one of Australia's largest Festival-focussed production companies, and was a consultant on Cultural Development for the City of Melbourne.

Kris has also had experience of university teaching and leading master classes and was head of the MSA Performing Arts Department and Artistic Director of Student Theatre Activities for Monash University. This was an extension of Kris’ previous teaching experience, which had included being a staff teacher (for ages 12 – 22) with the National Theatre, creating the syllabus for the West Australian Children’s Drama Company and freelancing as a lecturer at the Ballarat Academy of Performing Arts, the Children’s Performing Company of Australia and Queensland University.