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Faculty Fellow

Heidi Coleman

Director of Undergraduate Studies and Performance Programs, Theater and Performance Studies; Founder/Director, Chicago Performance Lab University of Chicago

Biography

Heidi Coleman is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and Performance Programs for Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, as well and the Founder/Director of Chicago Performance Lab. She has worked professionally as a director and dramaturg in New York City and San Francisco as well as Chicago. She has collaborated with Anne Bogart, Andrei Serban, Tina Landau, Frank Galati, and Tony Kushner; taught in Columbia University's Theater MFA and English departments; and has participated in Steppenwolf's First Look Series. Coleman is one of the founding directors of The Fourcast Lab, a transmedia design collective based at the University of Chicago that creates Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), pervasive games, cross-platform stories, and networked performances.

To learn more about Heidi Coleman's work, please visit her profile page at the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies.

Featured Project

Climate Games: Transforming Middle School STEM Education through Transmedia Play

2021 – 2022

Projects

Gaming Orientation

Gaming Orientation

The research team on this project developed and launched an alternate-reality game called The Parasite, which helped new students acclimate to a university setting during College Orientation 2017.

The Gaming Orientation project (2016–2019) transformed the University of Chicago’s 2017 college orientation into an immersive, alternate-reality game (ARG) called The Parasite. Incoming students were invited to collaborate on nine challenges, each of which helped them get acclimated to campus...