Rate My Professor Dorita Hannah

Dorita Hannah is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture and Built Environment, part of the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University of Newcastle, Australia. A New Zealand-based independent scholar, architect, and trans-disciplinary designer, she earned a Doctor of Philosophy with Distinction from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University in 2008, a Master of Arts with Distinction in Performance Studies from New York University in 2000, and a Bachelor of Architecture with Honours from the University of Auckland in 1984. Since 1986, Hannah has taught architecture, design, and visual arts at institutions including Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University in New Zealand, as well as universities in Australia, Serbia, the Netherlands, China, the United States, and Finland.

Her research interests focus on theatre architecture, performance design, spatial performativity, and trans-disciplinary concepts of 'performance design' and 'event-space', investigated through scholarly publications and artistic practice operating across spatial, visual, performing, and culinary arts. Key publications include her monograph Event-Space: Theatre Architecture and the Historical Avant-Garde (Routledge, 2018), developed from her PhD; co-editor of Performance Design (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2008); 'NOW/NEXT: Performance Space at the Crossroads' in Theatre and Performance Design (2019); 'Island Icarus: Signaling through the Flames as Critical Performance Design' (2021); and 'Contemporary Theatre Has Left the Theatre… “Houses” Made of Bricks, Sticks and Straw' (2025), with affiliation to the University of Newcastle. In professional practice, she co-founded Hannah Wallace Architects and designed the Watershed Theatre (1993). Hannah received the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Costume Designer of the Year (1994) and Set Designer of the Year (1996). She co-chairs the Performance+Design Working Group for Performance Studies international (PSi) and the Theatre & Architecture Working Group for the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR).