Jean St. Clair (deaf actress)

Last updated

Jean St. Clair (born 1966) is an English actor, screenwriter, director, producer and British Sign Language consultant. She has twice won Best Actress at the French deaf film festival Clin d'Oeil. St. Clair is Deaf and a British Sign Language user. [1]

Contents

Biography

St. Clair attended Mary Hare School [2] and then trained with the British Theatre of the Deaf. She then worked with National Theatre of the Deaf in the US, and later joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where she was the first UK Deaf actress in an otherwise hearing production. [3]

Her extensive theatre career has involved working in USA, Australia, South Africa and the West End, playing the lead in Children of a Lesser God. In 2016, she performed as Lyapkin-Tyapkin in The Government Inspector at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, followed by a UK tour. She co-founded a theatre company, the Fingersmith, with Jeni Draper and Kaite O’Reilly. [4] [5]

She was awarded Best Actress for her role in the short movie Still Here. [6] She wrote and directed an award-winning film, If I don’t Lose, I’ll Lose, [7] starring Caroline Parker, and the black comedy Signs of An Affair, for which she won Best Actress at the French deaf film festival Clin d'Oeil in 2017. [8]

St. Clair worked as a BSL Artistic Director on Doctor Who and on CBBC’s show Magic Hands.

Related Research Articles

Dorothy "Dot" Miles was a Welsh poet and activist in the deaf community. Throughout her life, she composed her poems in English, British Sign Language, and American Sign Language. Her work laid the foundations for modern sign language poetry in the United States and the United Kingdom. She is regarded as the pioneer of BSL poetry and her work influenced many contemporary Deaf poets.

Graeae Theatre Company, often abbreviated to just Graeae is a British organisation composed of deaf and disabled artists and theatre makers. As well as producing theatre which it tours nationally and internationally to traditional theatres and outdoor spaces, Graeae run a large and varied Creative Learning and training programme for emerging, young and mid-career deaf and disabled artists.

Anthony Higgins is an English stage, film and television actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Sears</span> British actress (1935–1994)

Heather Christine Sears was a British stage and screen actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Repertory Theatre</span> Off-Brodway theatre

The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off Broadway theatre founded in 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ace Mahbaz</span>

Ace Mahbaz is an actor and writer, known for Small World. He was born in Tehran and raised in Europe, currently residing in London and Berlin.

Sophie Leigh Stone is an English stage and television actress. She was the first deaf student to win a place at the drama school RADA. she is best known for her roles as Louise in Two Doors Down and Doctor Who as Cass.

Kaite O'Reilly is UK-based playwright, author and dramaturge of Irish descent. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Ted Hughes Award (2011) for her version of Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians. O'Reilly's plays have been performed at venues across the UK and at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has also been shown internationally including in Europe Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. O'Reilly openly identifies as a disabled artist and has spoken of the importance of "identifying socially and politically as disabled" to her work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Murphy (British actor)</span> British actor

Danny Murphy is a British deaf actor who appeared in the 2019 film The Parts You Lose alongside Aaron Paul. Murphy is fluent in British Sign Language.

<i>The Silent Child</i> 2017 film

The Silent Child is a British sign language short film written by and starring Rachel Shenton and directed by Chris Overton, and released in 2017 by Slick Films. It tells the story of Libby, a profoundly deaf 6-year-old girl, who lives a silent life until a social worker, played by Shenton, teaches her how to communicate through sign language. The film won the Oscar for Live Action Short Film at the 90th Academy Awards. The film's television debut was on BBC One to an audience of 3.6 million, the film then received an extended period on BBC iPlayer.

Nadia Nadarajah is a deaf British actress. She has labelled herself as English South Asian woman with dark skin. She uses British Sign Language.

David Ellington is an English actor and presenter based in Bristol. He is Deaf and uses British Sign Language (BSL).

Charlotte Arrowsmith is a British actor and theatre director. She is Deaf and uses British Sign Language.

Vilma Jackson is an English actor and performer. She is known for portraying the role of Charlie in Coronation Street. She is Deaf and a British Sign Language user. In 2020 Jackson wrote, produced and performed in a short film, "Triple Oppression", which deals with the challenges she faces as Black, Deaf and a woman. The short won four Best Inspirational Film at the New York Film Awards, the FilmCon Awards, Festigious International Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Awards. In 2021 she launched her own chat show, available online.

Lilian Keddie Lawson, OBE, is a Scottish linguist and activist. She is Deaf and a British Sign Language user.

Paula Garfield is a British theatre director and actress. She is Deaf and a British Sign Language user. In 2002 she co-founded the theatre company Deafinitely Theatre.

Caroline Parker is an English actor, comedian and performer. She is deaf and a British Sign Language user.

Cathy Heffernan is an Irish freelance journalist, documentarist and producer living in England. She is deaf and a British Sign Language user as well as her native Irish Sign Language.

The Almond and the Seahorse is a 2022 British independent drama film directed by Celyn Jones and Tom Stern and written by Jones and Kaite O'Reilly, based on O'Reilly's 2008 stage play of the same name. The film stars Trine Dyrholm, Meera Syal, Rebel Wilson and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Rose Lucinda Ayling-Ellis is an English actress. Deaf since birth, she is a British Sign Language user. She is best known for playing the role of Frankie Lewis in the BBC soap opera EastEnders (2020–2022).

References

  1. ↑ Supercool (2020-12-29). "Q&A with Jean St Clair from The Meeting". Chichester Festival Theatre. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  2. ↑ "Mary Hare History - List of Firsts". Mary Hare Grammar School.
  3. ↑ "See Hear: Signing on the stage".
  4. ↑ "Fingersmith Home Page".
  5. ↑ Kaite O’Reilly (2014-09-15). "Kaite O'Reilly" . Retrieved 2020-12-28.
  6. ↑ "Still Here (BSL Zone)".
  7. ↑ "If I don't lose, I'll lose (BSL Zone)".
  8. ↑ "Signs of an affair (BSL Zone)".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.