Associate Professor
Caroline Heim
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Drama
Biography
Associate Professor Caroline Heim is a global authority on theatre audiences and the psychology of relationships in the theatre. Her first book Audience as Performer: the changing role of theatre audiences in the twenty-first century (Routledge 2016) is regarded as a leading authority on theatre audiences and her second book Actors and Audiences: conversations in the electric air (Routledge 2020) received an Honorable Mention in the Rob Jordan book prize. Heim has given 5 keynotes internationally and her published articles cover various topics from global audiences to the mental health of her university students. Specialising in empirical research, she has interviewed over 200 actors and audience members internationally. She has just completed the largest global cross-sectional study on long-term relationships to date: Building Resilient Relationships: techniques for surviving hyper-individualism, social isolation and the mental health crisis (Routledge, 2023). This book, co-authored with a clinical psychiatrist, applies her methodologies and research to real world issues. In the Creative industries, Education and Social Justice Faculty at QUT she coordinates and lectures into units such as European theatre history, Australian theatre history and acting. Caroline’s PhD (University of Queensland) explored and trialled a new model for post-performance discussions. She was the theatre critic for The Australian for 2 years. Before entering academia, Heim graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York with a Drama League Award. She worked as a performer on the New York and major US capital city stages in lead roles for seven years.Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Drama
Research field
Performing Arts and Creative Writing
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD(Drama) (University of Queensland)
Professional memberships and associations
- Australasian Drama Studies Association
- American Society for Theatre Research
- National Council of Family Research
- International Association for Relationship Research
- Zonta International
Publications
- Heim, C., (2016). Audience as performer: The changing role of theatre audiences in the twenty-first century. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/86696
- Heim, C., (2020). Actors and Audiences: Conversations in the Electric Air. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/199371
- Heim, C. & Heim, C. (2021). Facilitating a supportive learning experience: The lecturer's role in addressing mental health issues of university students during COVID-19. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 18(6), 69–81. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/213870
- Haining, M. & Heim, C. (2019). Woman as Subject: Critical perspectives of Australian commercially successful plays with leading roles for female actresses. Australasian Drama Studies (75), 13–45. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/180902
- Heim, C., (2016). Broadway Theatre Fans: communities of narrators and translators. Popular Entertainment Studies, 7(1 - 2), 39–54. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/101866
- Carter, D. & Heim, C. (2015). Community engagement or community conversation?: Boomtown, a large-scale regional, outdoor community theatrical event. Australasian Drama Studies, 66, 202–224. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/85038
- Heim, C. & Heim, C. (2015). No Exit from the gaze: Sartre's theory facilitated through aspects of Meisner's practice. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 29(2), 127–145. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/86150
- Heim, C., (2013). Found in translation: debating the abstract elements of cultures through actor training styles. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 4(3), 353–367. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/65766
- Heim, C., (2012). 'Argue with us!': Audience co-creation through post-performance discussions. New Theatre Quarterly, 28(2), 189–197. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/50446
- Heim, C., (2012). Tutorial facilitation in the humanities based on the tenets of Carl Rogers. Higher Education, 63(3), 289–298. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/48358
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Caroline, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2019
- Details
- Invited Keynote Address "Audiences as Performers and Re-performers in Temporal Communities" Temporal Communities Grand Opening conference at the Freie University, Berlin
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2020
- Details
- "Vicarious Trauma Psychological tool for Covid First Responders." Joint Keynote with Dr Christian Heim to 1400 delegates. November 2020, Virtual Presentation, Cleveland, Ohio
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2020
- Details
- Rob Jordan Prize for Best Book (Honourable Mention) for "Actors and Audiences: Conversations in the Electric Air"
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2018
- Details
- Keynote Address "Relational Audience Research" at iNarpa Melbourne Symposium on current audience research across artforms
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2018
- Details
- International review of my book "Audience as Performer" Theatre Research International, a Q1 theatre journal DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883317000712
- Type
- Academic Honours, Prestigious Awards or Prizes
- Reference year
- 2019
- Details
- International review of my book "Audience as Performer" Theatre Journal, a Q1 theatre journal DOI: 10.1353/tj.2019.0113
Supervision
Looking for a postgraduate research supervisor?
I am currently accepting research students for Honours, Masters and PhD study.
You can browse existing student topics offered by QUT or propose your own topic.
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
- The Mathematics of Longing: Exploring the Interface between Science and Theatre by Translating Mathematical Theorems into a Play Script (2020)
- Envisaged, Invited and Actual Audiences: A New Model to Approach Audience Research in Australian Community-Engaged Performance Projects (2019)
- The Loss of Small White Clouds: Dementia in Contemporary Performance (2019)
- 'Insider-other' Spectator-Dancer Relationships fostered through Open Rehearsals (2016)