| About
Kristin
| Photo: Riders Of The Purple Sage Community
Snapshot
Stories make life rich. We can share them in a theater, by a campfire, or in a boardroom. Kristin Atwell Ford likes to listen to stories and amplify their power. She is inspired by a fresh take on history, arts and culture, reproductive freedom, water issues, and the West. Along with the beauty of the land, her favorite thing is telling stories that create community.
Big Picture
Kristin Atwell Ford has been trusted with some of Arizona’s most formative topics, from safeguarding the state’s water supply to reimagining the mythology of the West. She is an Emmy® Award-winning director, producer, writer, and the proud recipient of the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award.
Born in Arizona, Kristin grew up with an uncommon immersion in theater and wilderness adventures. Between performing onstage, apprenticeships at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge MA, teaching writing at Perry-Mansfield School of Performing Arts in Steamboat Springs CO, and graduating from Stephens College in Columbia MO, she explored the canyons and rivers of the American Southwest. These dual interests in nature and the performing arts create a rich synthesis in her work.
The Weight of a Feather
Kristin’s recently wrote and directed, “The Weight of a Feather,” which celebrates how caring for wild animals completes the circle of life. Made possible by the Rob Walton Foundation and Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the documentary explores and honors the profound significance of feathers to Native American cultural practices. “The Weight of a Feather” is the winner of four 2023 Rocky Mountain Emmy® Awards, including Science/Environmental program, and best writing, and editing.
Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera
In 2017, Kristin co-produced the new opera, “Riders of the Purple Sage,” by Craig Bohmler and Steven Mark Kohn based on Zane Grey’s iconic novel. A visionary driver of Arizona Opera’s world premiere, Atwell expanded the scope of the production by inviting fine art painter Ed Mell to design the set, welcoming Executive Producers Billie Jo and Judd Herberger, and forging audience-building collaborations with Zane Grey’s West Society, the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, The National Park Service, and Scottsdale’s Museum of the West.
Kristin documented the opera’s creative process in the film, “Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera,” winner of three 2020 regional Emmy® Awards, including Arts & Entertainment program, and best Director (long form).
Castle Hot Springs: Oasis of Time
Water is a subject that runs through much of Kristin’s work. In 2019, she was trusted with the story of Castle Hot Springs, a fabled spring on the ancestral lands of the Yavapai People that gave rise to Arizona’s first resort. Kristin wrote and directed “Castle Hot Springs: Oasis of Time,” winner of the 2019 Emmy® Award for Historical Documentary. Kristin also penned a coffee table book, “Castle Hot Springs: A Visual History,” which is available at the resort and Sharlot Hall Museum.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam: Arizona’s Living Legacy
Water, rivers, and drought resilience are critical subjects in Kristin’s work. In 2011, The Salt River Project tapped Atwell to co-direct and write “Theodore Roosevelt Dam: Arizona’s Living Legacy.” The film celebrates the dam’s role in creating the water certainty and the state’s water economy. Narrated by actor Peter Coyote, the film won the 2011 regional Emmy® Award for Historical Documentary.
Also with SRP, Kristin wrote and co-produced the 2016 Emmy® Award-winning Environmental Special “Protecting the Source,” and the film “Fire and Water,” which traces the impact of catastrophic forest fire on our water supply in the desert. Atwell had a front row seat to political history producing SRP’s nine-part PBS show, “The Arizona Centennial Series hosted by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.”
For twenty years Kristin has been an in-house producer for Quantum Leap Productions, a full-service video services and messaging boutique. She now brings her messaging skills to the corporate world and is available for culture consulting, internal communications, and speaking engagements. In 2022, Kristin was recognized as one of InBusiness Magazine’s Women of Achievement.
Atwell started her film career at Concentric Media with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman. Kristin produced and edited, “Woman by Woman,” winner of the 2002 Freddie Award for Women’s Health, about women providing medical services for other women in the villages of India. In 2001, Kristin produced her first documentary, “Quartzite’s Fall: A Wilderness Tale,” about the destruction of a whitewater river rapid in Arizona’s Salt River Canyon.
Kristin is the daughter of Sherri Chessen, the hostess of the children’s TV show, “The Romper Room” in Phoenix in the early 1960s. Kristin is currently producing the documentary feature, “Miss Sherri and The Pharmacologist,” about how her mother’s highly publicized thalidomide abortion in 1962 impacted reproductive rights and drug safety in the United States and Sweden.
A graduate of Stephens College, Kristin sits on the Western Council of The Entertainment Community Fund, which provides social services for everyone in entertainment. Kristin is honored to live and film on the lands of the Yavapai, Navajo, Hopi, Maricopa, and Apache People. She makes her home in Arizona with her husband Dennis Ford, a culture wonk and trapeze artist.
