About
Steven Kunis is an American director based in London.
He is the conceiver and director of Club NVRLND, the immersive nightclub musical adaptation of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, with book written by Olivier Award-winner Jack Holden. The production premiered at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it enjoyed an acclaimed soldout run – The Times remarking that 'This pop take on Peter Pan will grow into a phenomenon. I haven't heard such screaming in a theatre since SIX.' The production transfers to The Vaults in London for a commercial run from November 2026.
Steven has been nominated three times for Best Director of a Play at the Off West End Theatre Awards, most recently for the critically acclaimed revival of Taylor Mac’s Hir (Park Theatre 200) starring Emmy and Golden Globe winner Felicity Huffman. He was nominated in the same category for the UK Premiere of Young Jean Lee's Straight White Men (Southwark Playhouse), which received rave reviews across the national press and was named by The Independent as one of the UK's top ten theatre events of 2021.
In 2026 Steven made his film directing debut with Meet Frankie, starring Imogen Stubbs and Anthony Calf. The film has been selected for the 2026 Iris Prize Best British Short Film program and will be broadcast on Channel 4 and Film 4 in October. Meet Frankie has also won the awards for Best Short Film at the Chichester International Film Festival and the London Independent Film Festival.
In 2023, Steven directed Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro’s F**king Men, a modern reworking of the Arthur Schnitzler classic La ronde. The production sold out its initial 96 performances, returning for two further sold-out London runs in 2024 and 2025.
His work in opera includes an Arts Council England-funded residency assisting director Daniel Kramer on Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Germany.
Other directing credits include the UK premiere of Tanya Barfield's Bright Half Life (King's Head Theatre); the world premiere of Shaun McKenna's Rocky Road (Jermyn Street Theatre) named by The Guardian among the best digital theatre productions of UK lockdown; the UK Debut of The Refugee Orchestra Project at LSO St Luke's; and S. Asher Gelman’s Afterglow, for which Steven received his third Off West End Award nomination.
Steven is a member of the Young Vic Genesis Directors Network and was named an Emerging Leader in the UK Cultural Sector by the Clore Foundation in 2020. His work has been supported by Arts Council England, Ambassador Theatre Group, Sonia Friedman Productions, Cameron Mackintosh, the Rumi Foundation, the Tej Kohli Foundation, and the Clore Duffield Foundation.
BA: Harvard University
MSc: University of Oxford