Biography

Tom Pearson is an award-winning American multimedia artist, director, choreographer, poet, and scholar best known as a founder and co-artistic director of the acclaimed New York performance company Third Rail Projects. Renowned for site-specific, audience-centered immersive narratives, he co-created the long-running off-Broadway hits Then She Fell (The New York Times and Vogue Top Ten in Theater) and The Grand Paradise.

Pearson’s wide-ranging body of work spans theater, film, virtual reality, literature, and visual art, exploring the intersections of memory, ecology, climate chaos, and material culture. His company, Third Rail Projects was part of the creative team behind the Emmy (2019) and Peabody (2020) Award-winning VR experience Wolves in the Walls. He also co-wrote, directed, and choreographed the international award-winning short film The Night Garden. His work has been commissioned by world-class institutions including Lincoln Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Folger Shakespeare Library and broadcast on networks such as PBS and NBC.

A widely published author and former editor for The Public Theater’s Native Theater Journal, Pearson wrote the acclaimed poetry collections The Sandpiper’s Spell (named a Kirkus Best Book of 2019) and Still, the Sky. His accolades include two Bessie Awards, a 2020 Drama Desk nomination, a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation and Development Fund award, and a nomination for a 2026 United States Artists Fellowship. Pearson holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU and serves as director of the Global Performance Studio.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Pearson