Hey, I’m Saleemah
I’m an actor, dancer, choreographer & a huge horror movie fan.
Born and raised in Jersey, but the city is my home away from home, as I spent my weekends training at Broadway Dance Center in their Children & Teen Program (CTP) and Arts In Motion (AIM) dance company. Dance gave me my first professional opportunities and my path into acting.
I went to my first acting class with a few dance friends, and it was one of those aha moments where something just clicks. I started taking other classes and workshops around the city, and my interest in acting only grew. That curiosity for storytelling stayed with me, and when it came time to decide what to study in college, I chose theatre.
As a Theatre Studies major, I was exposed to the full ecosystem of theater making. Seeing how stories are built from the ground up, both onstage and off, I fell in love with the process.
That’s when acting shifted from being something I was curious about to the career I wanted to pursue.
After graduating with my B.A., I studied at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in NY, where I completed 2/3 years in their Day Conservatory program , before attending and graduating with my MFA in Acting from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Along the way, I discovered I love shaping stories as much as I love performing them. I’ve dramaturged plays (including How I Learned What I Learned, where my research actually updated August Wilson’s text), directed (Pass Over), and assistant directed (Misery) in grad school.
The arts shaped me into who I am today. I was a shy kid and the arts gave me a safe space to explore, express, and find my voice.
One of my goals is to help ensure that every child has access to the arts in school and in their communities. I believe, as Adler said, that growth as an artist and growth as a human being are synonymous.
Through the arts, we learn empathy, understanding, and how to step into the lives of people we might never otherwise encounter.
Creative expression breeds compassion, and the world could use a lot more of that right now.
When I’m not working on a project, I’m either reading or listening to audiobooks, jammin’ to Hamilton or deep in a horror movie marathon.
I look forward to us working together, until then let’s connect!