Dr Tom Drayton
Senior Lecturer
Acting, Performance & Directing
Acting, Performance and Directing , School Of Arts And Creative Industries
Dr Tom Drayton is the Course Leader for MA/MFA Directing for Stage and Screen, and teaches across MA Acting, MA Theatre Directing and MA Contemporary Performance Practices.
Qualifications
- PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, The University of East London, 2022
- PhD ‘Towards a Listening Theatre: Metamodernism, Millennials and Contemporary Political Performance’, University of East London, 2020
- MA Theatre Directing, University of East London, 2014
- BA (Hons) Drama & Performance, University of Worcester, 2012
Areas Of Interest
Tom’s primary research interests focus on metamodern cultural forms, theatre of the millennial generation, and contemporary political performance.
OVERVIEW
Tom’s teaching across all HE levels focuses on director training, ensemble devising skills and emerging contemporary performance practices. His primary research focuses on metamodern theatre.
This research fuses praxis and critical scholarship, encompassing workshops, performances and publications Professionally, Tom has acted and directed with award-winning theatre company Pregnant Fish Theatre since 2010. His work with them has been described as 'precisely what theatre should try to be' (Empire of the Will).
Research and impact
Tom’s research focuses on metamodernism within contemporary theatre and popular culture, and he is the author of the first book about metamodern theatre - Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre: A Politics of Hope/lessness (Bloomsbury 2024). Tom’s other writing has been published in Performance Philosophy Journal, ArtsPraxis and the European Journal of Theatre and Performance.
Most recent research
Drayton, T. (2024) Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre: A Politics of Hope/lessness London, Bloomsbury.
PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
Drayton, T. (2024) Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre: A Politics of Hopelessness. London, Bloomsbury.
Print Chapters
Drayton, T. (2022) 'Can I Join In? Playful Performance and Alternative Political Realities'. Chapter in Koubová, A., Urban, P., Russell, W. & MacLean, M. (eds.) (2022) Play and Democracy: Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge, London.
Journal Articles
Drayton, T. (2019) 'A Silent Shout: Metamodern Forms of Activism in Contemporary Performance', ArtsPraxis Journal, Vol. 5 Issue 2.
Drayton, T. (2018) 'The Listening Theatre: A Metamodern Politics of Performance', Performance Philosophy Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1. DOI
Online Articles
Drayton, T. (2021) 'Should I Be Joking in a Time Like This?': Bo Burnham's INSIDE as a Metamodern Response to Crisis', What Is Metamodern? [Online]
Invited Lectures
Drayton, T. (2023) ‘It’s all so pointless. Ah, but it’s not though, is it? It’s really real and when you feel it you can really feel it’: Theatre & Performance Within Metamodernism. Keynote Lecture at ‘The Metamodern Circus’ Symposium, NoFit State Circus & Cardiff University, Cardiff, May 2023.
Conference Papers
Drayton, T. (2024) ‘Can’t this just fucking exist? Can’t a play from a person like me just be a fucking play already?’: Metamodern Self-reflexivity as an approach to tackling Black Trauma Narratives in Arinzé Kene’s Misty (2018), ‘Recentring Form(s) in and of the Margins: The Politics of Self-Reflexivity’ Conference Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, Belgium, April 2024.
Drayton, T. & Dunne-Howrie, J. (2022) The Gaming Democracy Project: Virtual Democracy
In The Age of Fascism IRL (In Real Life), ZIP-SCENE Conference, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary, November 2022.
Christodoulou, P., Corsa, A., Drayton, T. & Goldstein, T. (2022) I Really Don't Care, Do You?: The Philosophical Problems of Producing Empathy in Contemporary Performance. Panel presentation at 'Performance Philosophy Problems': Performance Philosophy Biennial Conference, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. June 2022.
Drayton, T. (2021) 'Unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time', Anti-Racist Activism and the Performativity of Statues, 'Performance & Populism: Mobilization and Popular Power on the Left' Conference, University of Warwick, UK & University of California-Berkley, USA. November 2021.
Drayton, T. (2021) Meet Me Through the Webcam: An Ethics of Participatory Performance Practice in the Age of Zoom, 'Crisis & Recovery: Theatre and Performance Before and After the Global Pandemic' CATR/ACRT/SQET conference, University of Ottawa, Canada. July 2021.
Drayton, T. (2019) Hope/Less: The Politics of Metamodern Theatre, 4th AHRC Metamodernism conference, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. July 2019.
Drayton, T. (2019) Can I Join In? Playful Performance as Political Intervention, 'Play and Democracy': the 5th biennial Philosophy at Play conference, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. June 2019.
Drayton, T. (2019) Authenticity in the Arts and Media in an Era of Fake News: Loss & Hope, 'Authenticity in the Arts and Media in an Era of Fake News' conference, The University of East London, London, UK. February 2019.
Drayton, T. (2018) Metamodern, Millennial Malaise in Contemporary Performance, 'Making Connections' conference, The University of East London, London, UK. May 2018.
Drayton, T. (2018) Listening Theatre: The New Politics of Millennial Performance Makers, NYU Educational Theatre Forum 2018: 'Performance as Activism', New York University, New York CIty, USA. April 2018.
Drayton, T. (2016) Round and Round the Gardens: Can the RHS engage children with relevant environmental issues through immersive, promenade theatre?, ASSITEJ On The Edge Festival; 'Theatre from the inside: Immersive Theatre' panel, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. June 2016.
Other Publications
Drayton, T. (2023) Notes on [a] Metamodernism [conference] in Kavanagh, K. and Hamer, T. (eds.) The Really Fantastic and the Fantastically Real: Doing Circus Now. (2023) Cardiff, UK. Metamodern Festival.
Book reviews
Drayton, T. (2024) Kelsey Jacobson, ‘Real-ish: Audiences, Feeling, and the Production of Realness in Contemporary Performance’ Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023. Review in Participations Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Volume 20, Issue 1, May 2024.
Drayton, T. (2022) ‘Choreographing Agonism: Politics, Strategies and Performances of the Left’. Goran Petrović-Lotina Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Review in European Journal of Theatre & Performance: ‘Activism and Spectatorship’ Issue 4, June 2022.
TEACHING
MA/MFA Contemporary Performance Practices
Elevate your artistic senses with a Contemporary Performance Practice degree at the University of East London. Ignite your creativity for a career in performance art.
Find out more about this course
MA Directing for Stage and Screen
Direct for both the live theatre and for onscreen film and television. Develop audio-visual elements for live performance.
Read more about this course
MA Theatre Directing
Pursue a professional career as a theatre director, develop your directing practice through an active engagement with critical thinking.
Find out more about this coursePublications
The last four years of publications can be viewed below.
Full publications list
Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications
- Notes on [a] Metamodernism [conference] in: Drayton, T.The Really Fantastic and the Fantastically Real: Doing Circus Now. Cardiff, UK: Metamodern Festival, pp.8 - 12
- Can I Join In? Playful Performance and Alternative Political Realities in: Drayton, T.Play and Democracy: Philosophical Perspectives. Routledge, pp.108-124
- A Silent Shout: Metamodern Forms of Activism in Contemporary Performance Artspraxis. 5 (2), pp. 169-184