Kris Stewart is a multidiscipline and multigenre producer and director, with a key focus on major events and festivals. Recently, he has been the founding director of the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), the world's largest annual musical theatre event, and through his production companyRed Sand Media Partners, he was one the producers of the TONY nominated and Obie and Drama Desk award winning musical [title of show] (which played on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater) and the feature film Red Hook, a teen thriller distributed by Phase 4 Films..

Currently, Kris continues his work in the commercial theatre as Resident Director of the musical Wicked in Australia for theGordon/Frost Organization, which has played at Sydney's Capitol Theatre and Melbourne's Regent Theatre. Under Kris' direction, Wicked has been seen by over a million audience members, setting attendance records in both cities it has played. In addition, he continues to work for non-profit arts organizations; both heading organizations - as the inaugural Artistic Director of TheSydney Fringe, NSW's key major event for the alternative and independent arts sector, and the Director of New Musicals Australia, a state funded body charged with the development of new Australian musicals - and as a working artist, directing projects such as The Trocodero Dance Palace for the 2011 Sydney Festival.

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, special events and master classes. Kris oversaw almost 20 venues each year running full-time, with more than 1000 artists, creators and staff working across the event.

For The Sydney Fringe, he continues this work in a multidiscipline festival, programming 700+ performances of more than 250 shows and events in 53 inner city venues, events that we're seen by over 100,000 attendees. The first year of the Fringe included 3000 artists working on 76 theatre works, 59 music acts, 30 musicals, 25 visual arts exhibitions, 16 full length comedies, 13 digital arts pieces, 11 pieces of burlesque or circus, 8 dance productions, four children's theatre companies, two film festivals, as well as underground artspace tours, street festivals, alternative fashion parades, masquerade balls and street theatre. For the first time, iconic Sydney venues such as CarriageWorks, theSeymour Centre, the Enmore Theatre, the Factory and the New Theatre have been all brought together under the curatorship of a single festival.

In 2010, Kris founded New Musicals Australia, an initiative dedicated to the production of original music theatre in Australia. The program focuses on providing writers and composers with the opportunity to have their new musicals workshopped by professionals and presented to high level industry peers, creative industry leaders and general audience members, with up to six works a year getting professional workshops and presentation within the initiative.

While at NYMF, Kris premiered a number of music theatre works, including the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal, Altar Boyz,[title of show], Gutenberg! the Musical!, Nerds:// A Musical Software Satire, Shout! The Mod Musical, The Big Voice: God or Merman?, Captain Louie and The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Kris has commissioned the creation of a number of new works, including Common Grounds andPlatforms (two new dance musicals),Wrong Number (a music theatre piece 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 music theatre piece on the rise and fall of Atari, in collaboration with the Ensemble Studio Theatre). At The Sydney Fringe, he has reopened The Hub and the Newtown School of Arts, both unused for decades, and made them centres for arts programming, and co-presented the Sydney Underground Film Festival, Lunamorph Alternative Fashion Festival, the Mobile Screenfest 2010 and ST2K Urban Art Festival.

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 played to more than 90% attendance while under Kris' stewardship, and he grew 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) and delivering a budget surplus for the five years of his management. In his first year heading the Sydney Fringe, he has developed sponsorship relationships with Time Out, Grolsch, Canadian Club, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Airport, Coca Cola and others.

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 HelpmannAwards 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).

Prior to NYMF, Kris was executive director of the National Music Theatre Network and consulting director for theTheatre for the American Musical. He held senior positions at many Australian companies, including acting as Associate Director forThe Kevin Jacobsen Corporation (Australia), where he worked on Sisterella, Gael Force Dance, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Chess, and Jekyll and Hyde. He directedInto the Woods with the cast ofWicked for The Rob Guest Endowment, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying forThe 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, AnthonyCostanzo's Life's a Circus and the workshops ofThe 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 andGuys and Dolls, amongst others.

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

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, 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. Kris has also worked as an educator at the Australia Institute of Music, WAAPA, the NYU/Tisch School of Drama,theNational Theatre (Melbourne), Ballarat Academy of Performing Arts, the Children's Performing Company of Australia and Central Queensland University and was head of the MSA Performing Arts Department and Artistic Director of Student Theatre Activities for Monash University.