Courtesy of We Got Dis!
Audio By Carbonatix
When Sarah Whiteman left her corporate job at Amazon, she didn’t set out to become a disability advocate or a filmmaker. She just wanted to try stand-up. As she began performing, she also started working in disability services and noticed how rarely people from that community were invited into comedy spaces at all.
That realization became We Got Dis!, a two-part, Denver-shot docuseries premiering with a public screening on Saturday, February 14 at RISE Comedy.
Whiteman describes the show as “Conan Across Borders meets Queer Eye meets Love on the Spectrum, except Love on the Spectrum is not made by a neurodivergent mind, which is a huge difference,” she says. “It starts with just a few different things, like skits and sketches — Key & Peele was my original thought — mixed with let’s get [disabled people] ready to do a standup show.”
Whiteman created and directed the series after realizing that standing on stage and joking about her own experiences felt empowering. She realized that comedy could be a way in for herself and other members of the disability community who are funny, creative and are rarely given the opportunity to share their stories.
“We’re using comedy as a vessel for advocacy and empowerment,” she says. “Because, out of anyone in the world, people with disabilities deserve a laugh and want a laugh. They want that in their life. It’s already tough as is.”
Rather than framing the project as advocacy first, Whiteman describes We Got Dis! as something born out of impulse, frustration and momentum. She has been open about how her ADHD shapes both her comedy and the way the project came together.
“With ADHD, I’d rather do anything dopamine-based or reward-based than clean my apartment,” Whiteman says. “So instead of wanting to do all the stuff I should do, I was like, let’s make a show. I have no film experience; let’s do that. That sounds like a good idea.”
She didn’t do it alone. Whiteman teamed up with Rajiv Satyal, a Los Angeles-based comedian and former Procter & Gamble marketing executive who serves as executive producer and on-screen collaborator.
Courtesy of We Got Dis!
The two met in 2022, after Whiteman’s LinkedIn post about leaving Amazon and trying stand-up went viral, resulting in a Business Insider profile. Satyal’s publicist noticed the similarities in their careers and linked them, which led to Whiteman appearing on Satyal’s podcast, The TanGent Show, then becoming fast friends and, eventually, We Got Dis!
“I was so nervous,” Whiteman says about meeting Satyal on his podcast. “I looked Rajiv up. I was like imposter syndrome central at this point in 2022. I did one standup show, and I see that he’s worked with Dave Chappelle, Tim Allen and now…Sarah Whiteman? Like, what? I was so nervous, and like, I listened to that back once, and it was just not our same relationship as it is now.”
“It was more formal,” Satyal adds. “I mean, I was like, ‘Here’s a LinkedIn comedian; what’s a LinkedIn comedian?’
“Now I tell you what to do,” Whiteman rebuts.
“Yeah, now you’re the creator,” he admits. “You’re the boss.”
That breezy rapport between the former corporate employees turned comedians shapes the tone of the series itself. The show follows Whiteman, Satyal and fourteen members of Denver’s disability community through joke-writing workshops, sketches, experimental activities and, ultimately, a stand-up showcase.
The cast spans ages, backgrounds and disabilities, with Denver hip-hop artist Jah-Sun Collier contributing both performances and original music. Some participants had never considered doing comedy, and at least one was adamant he would not perform — until he did.
“He was better than Rajiv,” Whiteman says. “And by definition,” Satyal added, “far better than Sarah.”
“Oh, gosh, no, mine was awful,” Whiteman says.
“Yours wasn’t awful,” Satyal clarifies. “You suffered from the fact that you, a lot of us have done this, where it’s like, you’re organizing, you’re creating, you’re doing everything all week, you were up into the night, getting up early, and then suddenly you have the microphone, and it’s like, ‘Oh, I have to do a set.'”
That self-awareness is key to what We Got Dis! is trying to do. The show doesn’t pretend comedy is easy, or that every joke lands. Instead, it embraces the risk. Satyal, who openly acknowledges being the only non-disabled performer in the core group, said the process forced everyone to think about who gets to be the subject of a joke and why.
“I think a lot of times people are afraid to make that joke [about a disability], like I’m gonna be offensive or the person’s going to be hurt,” Satyal says. “I think you roast the ones you love … it’s a little bit more nuanced than that, but that said, it’s important to keep in mind that if it’s funny, go for it, sling it out there, and this is a fellow artist, these are people who are creatives, and if a joke bombs, guess what? My jokes bout able-bodied people don’t always work either, right? So, no comedian bats a thousand.”
The pilot for We Got Dis! came together on an intense, compressed timeline. Filming took place in October 2025 over several consecutive days in locations including RISE Comedy, the Disability Innovation Hub and the Denver International Airport. One of the central performances was staged at 8 a.m. on Halloween at RISE Comedy. By the end of the shoot, Whiteman estimates she was left with roughly forty hours of footage to edit down into two episodes.
Courtesy of We Got Dis!
The premiere on February 14 will highlight the team’s efforts to bring the two-part pilot for the docuseries to life. In addition to the screening, the afternoon will feature live performances, music and a cast Q&A to allow participants to reflect on what the process meant to them.
That screening also marks the starting point for what Whiteman hopes becomes a much larger project. She launched a GoFundMe in November to help turn We Got Dis! from a pilot into a traveling series, with plans to visit other cities, partner with local comedians and work with disability communities across the country. The immediate goal is to build momentum and prove the model works; the long-term vision includes additional seasons and broader distribution.
The series will be released publicly on YouTube following the premiere, making it accessible beyond Denver. But the team stresses that the live premiere at RISE Comedy is an important part of the process.
“The aim of the premiere is to generate interest, excitement, awareness, which will then feed the GoFundMe, allowing us to create more content, and it’ll just become a virtuous cycle,” Satyal says. “That’s the idea — to test the water, see what we get right and see what we may need to change.”
Only time will tell what happens to We Got Dis! after its premiere and YouTube debut, but the creators are aiming high.
“I’d like to get on a streaming platform, like Netflix or Amazon Prime,” Whiteman says. “That was kind of my main goal starting. It’d be a docuseries, so I would assume after this, maybe I would film a couple in a row and edit those all before launching, so stay tuned, but each one would be a season instead of an episode for a season, is what I’m thinking right now, because it takes that long to get this group together. I had this in because I knew the disability community here. That’s where I’ve been working, post-Amazon. That was an easy, easy find, so I’m up for the next challenge.”
We Got Dis! premieres on Saturday, February 14, at RISE Comedy, 1260 22nd Street. Doors open at 1:30 p.m. for the 2 p.m. screening. Tickets are free. Learn more at risecomedy.com.