Thomas is the Executive Director of New York Stage and Film (NYSAF), a leading organization dedicated to developing new work in process for theater, film, and beyond. During his tenure, NYSAF has supported over 300 projects and 2500+ artists, including Tony Award winners Hamilton, Hadestown, and The Humans, Pulitzer Prize finalists The Wolves (Sarah DeLappe) and Taylor Mac’s epic A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, and a variety of work from artists such as Rachel Chavkin, Lynn Nottage, Michael Friedman, Ayad Akhtar, César Alvarez, and countless others. Thomas’s role at NYSAF spans strategy, operations, fundraising and external affairs. His time has been marked by a strategic deepening of programming and organizational capacity, including new programs such as the Filmmakers’ Workshop, NYSAF NOW, and the NYC Winter Season, an expansion of the permanent year-round staff, board and funder development, and expanded commitments to pay equity, access, agency, and belonging, to address historical inequities. In accordance with this strategic expansion, NYSAF’s institutional budget, annual contributed revenue, and net assets have doubled.
Prior to NYSAF, Thomas was a theatrical literary agent at International Creative Management (ICM), where he represented a wide variety of artists in theater and other live performance, as well as film, television, and new media platforms. He facilitated the development and premiere of work such as Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Passing Strange, Fela!, An Iliad, and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s landmark The Brother/Sister Plays, and clients included Stephen Belber, Michael Friedman, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Patricia McGregor, Charles L. Mee, Lisa Peterson, Will Power, Jose Rivera, Alex Timbers, and Evan Yionoulis. Other previous work includes four years as the Associate Managing Director of Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop, where he served as the general manager for the development and production of new work by artists such as Tony Kushner and Caryl Churchill. As a board member and advisor, he has worked with Les Fréres Corbusier (Alex Timbers, Artistic Director) and is currently on the board of Theater Mitu (Rubén Polendo, Artistic Director). Thomas received BA degrees in Literature and Theater Studies from Yale University, and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his family.