For over 20 years, Mexican artist, producer, and arts executive CHRISTIAN DE GRÉ CÁRDENAS has served as one of the most influential contemporary voices in the development of new works. He has overseen the opening of more than 1,000 new theatrical productions and is a seven-time New York indie-theater festival winner. He served for 15 years as Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Mind The Art Entertainment and was General Manager of the New York International Fringe Festival, the largest multi-arts festival in the Americas. De Gré Cárdenas has co-created 30 award-winning works with institutions including The Public Theater, La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, Discovery Channel, Broadway Cares, the Drama Desk Awards, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. As a theater activist, he served as Global Outreach Partner for Theater for Social Change with the United Nations Y-Peer Network in Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Americas. Most recently, he served as Director of the National Opera Center and guided OPERA America through the pandemic as Chief Operating Officer. He now splits his time between New York City, where he co-leads the renowned Heartbeat Opera, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, developing new works for opera, theater, cabaret, film, and television while quietly obsessing over the bugambilias in his garden.