Jean St. Clair (deaf actress)

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]

Not to be confused with Jean St Clair.

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 USA, 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] 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]

Jean worked as BSL Artistic Director on Dr Who and with CBBC’s Magic Hands.

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)".
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