Sahera Khan: My latest role in theatre show The Acts (BSL)

Hello, my name is Sahera Khan. I’m Deaf and use British Sign Language. I’m an artist and actor from London.

I’m an actor for both screen and stage, as well as having many different creative outlets such as writing short films, poems, books and short stories. I also make creative videos for YouTube.

My most recent show is called The Acts. It was produced by CRIPtic Arts and was directed by Jamie Hale. The show contains four different performances showing the experiences of people through disability, oppression and other things in their lives. 

CRIPtic arts are an accessibility-driven organisation who provide active disabled leadership. In 2022, the Shaw Trust named them as one of the 25 most influential disabled-led community organisations in the Disability Power 100!

My role in their show The Acts was the presenter (like a filmmaker or director) so I introduced the shows and talked about each segment of the performance. 

These were very important stories to tell, to give the audience awareness of disability and what that really means. For example, the experiences of people with autism, telling disabled people’s stories around health, politics and many more topics through both art and theatre. It was really, really creative and fantastic.

I wasn’t the only deaf creative involved in the show. Of course, I’m a Deaf actor and there was also a Deaf BSL consultant, David Ellington, so there were two of us – two Deaf BSL users. 

We worked together on translating the script into BSL. The rest of the company were hearing disabled people and there were some BSL interpreters as well.

I really hope the audience will enjoy the show. I hope they feel engaged and become more aware of these particular disability stories. Mainly, I hope they enjoy it and the feedback from our audiences so far has been really positive. 

We’ve had some great posts and reviews of the show, everyone has said really good things so I’m really happy with that.

Looking forwards to the future, I hope to continue with my acting work on either stage or screen. I will also continue with my other creative work from home. I’m eagerly awaiting any other opportunities that I can take. 

I recently performed at BDA Glasgow in a poetry competition and won third place!

Reflecting on deaf arts and film in general, I would like to see more opportunities for deaf artists, actors and creators in theatre, in TV and in film. 

I’d like that process to continue, and I’d like those opportunities to grow. Right now, things are going in a positive direction, but it is a slow process.

You can find out more about Sahera’s work and get in touch with her using the links below:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Sahera04 

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14296542/ 

Website: https://sahera1.tumblr.com/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Sahera1