About
Steven Kunis is an American director based in London.
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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-nominee 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.' Plans for a commercial transfer to be announced soon.
In early 2024, Steven was nominated for Best Director of a Play at the Off West End Theatre Awards for the critically acclaimed revival of Taylor Mac’s play Hir (Park Theatre 200) starring Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Felicity Huffman. He was previously nominated in the same category in 2021 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 the year.
In 2023, Steven directed Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro’s F**king Men, a modern retelling of the Arthur Schnitzler classic La ronde. The production sold out 96 performances, and in 2024 and 2025 had two additional six-week sold-out London runs due to popular demand.
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Steven also directed the UK premiere of Tanya Barfield's Bright Half Life (King's Head Theatre), and the world premiere of Shaun McKenna's Rocky Road (Jermyn Street Theatre), the latter of which was listed by The Guardian among the top digital theatre experiences of UK lockdown. Other directing credits include the UK Debut of The Refugee Orchestra Project at LSO St Luke's, and the acclaimed three-month run of S. Asher Gelman’s Afterglow, for which Steven was again nominated Best Director at the Off West End Awards.
Steven is an ongoing member of the Young Vic Genesis Directors Network, and in 2020 was named an Emerging Leader in the UK Cultural Sector by the Clore Foundation. His work has been supported by Arts Council England, the Ambassador Theatre Group, Sonia Friedman Productions, Cameron Mackintosh, the Rumi Foundation, the Tej Kohli Foundation, and the Clore Duffield Foundation.
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Currently, Steven is in post-production for his first film – Meet Frankie – a short starring Imogen Stubbs and Anthony Calf, with screenplay written by Shaun McKenna.​ In 2026 he will complete an Arts Council England-funded residency assisting Olivier Award-winning director Daniel Kramer on his production of Wagner's Meistersinger at The Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Germany.​​