Tom Drayton

Dr Tom Drayton is a scholar of performance, media, and contemporary culture whose research explores metamodernism, postdigitality, and how performance studies can help understand trends in contemporary culture and postdigital life. His work examines how performance operates across cultural, technological, and ideological terrains - from contemporary British theatre to online extremism and influencer culture.

He is the author of Metamodernism in Contemporary British Theatre: A Politics of Hope/lessness (Bloomsbury, 2024) and co-author of Performance and Postdigital Extremism: Conspiracy, Influencers & Gaming (Bloomsbury, 2026, with Joseph Dunne-Howrie). He is also co-editor, with Joshua Busman, Maren Haynes Marchesini and Greg Dember, of My Impossible Soul: The Metamodern Music of Sufjan Stevens (Bloomsbury, 2026) and serves as General Editor for Studies in Theatre and Performance journal.

He is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of East London.