The features of modern secondary English classrooms are increasingly influenced by the pressures of accountability that may restrict creativity, undermine students belongingness, and reduce the opportunities of justice-oriented learning. It has been suggested that drama-based pedagogy can be used as a humanizing method that promotes embodied, relational, and critical interaction with literacy, but there has been little qualitative research on the experience of drama-based pedagogy by learners and instructors in secondary English-speaking settings. This qualitative phenomenological research examined the lived experiences of the drama-based pedagogy in the English classrooms of secondary school, especially focusing on creativity, belonging and social justice. The data collection was carried out using in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals of ten participants, which included secondary English teachers and students who had maintained a long experience in drama-based instructional practices. The reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze data in order to determine common patterns of meaning between the accounts of the participants. The results showed that there were four interconnected themes, including drama as a driver of creative expression and risk-taking, the creation of a sense of belonging through ensemble activities and shared vulnerability, the creation of embodied empathy and critical perspective-taking rooted in social justice, and the change in the teacher-student power relations that empowered the students to develop their voice and agency. The combination of these results shows that drama-based pedagogy is perceived as a unity that offers creative as well as relational and justice-aligned literacy learning. The research provides a phenomenological understanding of how drama-based pedagogy can be used as a humanizing method in the secondary English classroom and provides an implication to the teachers who want to stimulate creativity, belonging, and social justice in classroom instruction.