Kris Stewart is Chief Executive Officer of QMusic, the peak body for live music in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and producer of BIGSOUND, Australia's largest live music industry event. Between 2013 and 2021, he was Artistic Director at

Brisbane Powerhouse Brisbane Powerhouse is an arts and cultural hub located in a former power station in the Brisbane suburb of New Farm, Queensland, Australia. The venue offers an array of performing arts, visual arts, festivals, and free community events. The fir ...

, a multidisciplinary arts and cultural precinct in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Biography

Stewart was born in Adelaide, South Australia and grew up in

Salisbury East, South Australia Salisbury East ( ) is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, located 20 kilometres north of the Adelaide CBD. The residential part of the suburb is in the local government area (LGA) of the City of Salisbury, however the eastern part of the Cobb ...

. He studied in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, at the

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) at Edith Cowan University (ECU) was established in 1980 to provide performing arts tuition. WAAPA (commonly pronounced "whopp-a") operates as a part of ECU, located at the ECU campus in ...

, graduating in 1995. He lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

from 2002 to 2009, before returning to Australia. From 2004 to 2009, Stewart was Executive Director of

New York Musical Theatre Festival The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) was an annual three-week summer festival that operated from 2004 to 2019. It presented more than 30 new musicals a year in New York City's midtown theater district. More than half were chosen by leading theate ...

, an organization he founded. In 2005, Stewart and NYMF received the $100,000

Jujamcyn Award Created in 1984, the Jujamcyn Theaters Award has been given over 20+ years to honor a resident theater organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent for the theatre. The award has been sponsored by Ju ...

. From 2008 to 2011 Stewart was the resident director for the

Gordon Frost Organisation Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gordon, ...

in Australia for the blockbuster musical

Wicked Wicked may refer to: Books * Wicked, a minor character in the ''X-Men'' universe * '' Wicked'', a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire that inspired the musical of the same name * ''Wicked'', the fifth novel in Sara Shepard's ''Pretty Little Liars'' s ...

, overseeing the show artistically including casting, rehearsing and management of the local creative team. In 2009 Stewart founded

The Sydney Fringe The Sydney Fringe is an alternative arts and culture festival held for the first time in September 2010 in the inner west of Sydney, Australia. The Fringe is an initiative of the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association.

and acted as its inaugural Festival Director. Over 100,000 people attended the event in its inaugural year. In 2011, Stewart relocated to

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

to act as Artistic Director of the Festival of Voices. Stewart was appointed Artistic Director of

in July 2013, following on from previous artistic director Andrew Ross. In April 2017, Brisbane Powerhouse announced they had recently completed their most successful quarter in the organization's history, with attendees to the Brisbane Comedy Festival growing 23% to 55,099. In addition, they announced 909 Brisbane artists were represented at their venue in the last 12 months, an increase just shy of 300% in three years. In 2021, Stewart finished his tenure at Brisbane Powerhouse, after selling more than a million tickets to over 2500 shows. In 2019, Stewart founded and was the inaugural Creative director for Curiocity Brisbane, a city-wide event that combines arts, science and technology. Through his production company Red Sand Media Partners, LLC, Stewart is one of the producers of the

Obie The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

and

Drama Desk The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

award-winning

Title of show '' itle of show' is a one-act musical, with music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen and a book by Hunter Bell. The show chronicles its own creation as an entry in the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and follows the struggles of the author and compos ...

,TITLE OF SHOW Internet Broadway database listing http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=478457 which opened on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

17 July 2008 at the Lyceum Theatre, and the feature film '' Red Hook'', a teen thriller shot in NYC in 2007. Stewart was executive director of the National Music Theatre Network and resident director on shows that included

Sisterella ''Sisterella'' is a musical, presented and produced by Michael Jackson with Miramax Films in association with Tribeca. Music, lyrics and book are by Larry Hart. The original choreographer was Ramon Del Barrio. The musical has been described as ...

, Gael Force Dance, Disney's ''

Beauty and the Beast ''Beauty and the Beast'' (french: La Belle et la Bête) is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in ''La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins'' ( ...

'', ''

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

'', and ''

Jekyll & Hyde ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...

''. In Australia, he has directed for The Production Company,

State Opera of South Australia State Opera South Australia (SOSA) is a professional opera company in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 1976. History State Opera South Australia was established in 1976 as a statutory corporation under the ''State Opera of South Aust ...

Melbourne Theatre Company The Melbourne Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1953 as the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, it is the oldest professional theatre compa ...

, IMG,

Opera Australia Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of ...

and has directed multiple musicals.

References

External links

Kris Stewart's Official WebsiteBrisbane PowerhouseCuriocity Brisbane Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Kris American musical theatre directors American theatre managers and producers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)