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Foreign.
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I'm an attorney, I'm an actor, and I'm an advocate. My name is Sean Hayden. When I was wrongfully fired as an actor from a certain famous theater, I fought back. Suddenly I was a whistleblower. And I told my story true crime style in a podcast. Since then, I've been telling your stories and having the tough conversations that a lot of people in the entertainment we don't want us to have. This is Stage Combat, the podcast. Hey, Ian, what's up? Hi, Sean. Welcome to Stage Combat, the podcast, the Cold Open. Thank you. This is the part where we could start talking and then I do a voiceover and go, that's my husband Ian. And we're talking about. But I think we'll just talk. Hey. This is an episode that I was supposed to do last season about invisible disabilities, because apparently globally, one in seven people have an invisible disability, and particularly about hearing loss. There's an actor named Marianne Galloway that I've wanted to interview for a long time, who I met when the podcast first came out, and she told me about how she navigates the world as an actor with a really unique hearing loss. She's got hearing loss in both ears, and she only hears vowels. She doesn't hear consonants, and she was born that way. She's an actor in Dallas, Texas, and she's had a really vibrant acting career. She's even done. You remember that Lily Tomlin show, the Search for Intelligent Signs of Life in the Universe? The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. She did that show and she's about to do it again in Dallas. Yeah. I'm interested to know how she navigates her life as an actor. But this is where I have to come clean with the listeners why I didn't do the episode. Because, ta da. I'm one of those one in seven people. Because three weeks before we premiered season three of this podcast, I lost most of my hearing in my right ear. Right. And you've never talked about this before? I've never told the listeners this, no. Oh, okay. Yeah. I have something called sudden hearing loss, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's sudden, and doctors can't necessarily say it's caused by any one thing, but I lost 70% in my right ear suddenly, hence the name. But the worst part is the vestibular disorder that goes with it. So I have a vestibular disorder. Vestibular controls your equilibrium, your balance, that sense you have when you're walking down the street. And because the hearing loss is related to the inner ear. Yeah. I don't know why this is hard to talk about even now. Kinda. You know, I had drinks with our friend Robbie the other night, and I was telling him I was going to be doing this and that I felt kind of weird about it. He's like, yeah, but you've shared everything, so why? What is it about this? And I couldn't really tell him. Well, I think last season you didn't mention it, probably because you were still probably trying to process exactly what it was and how it was manifesting itself, like figuring out all the. All the ways that it was. That it was affecting you and how to deal with all of that. Yeah. And to be honest, I didn't have time to deal with it because I just had to push out the podcast season because it was 10 episodes, and then it got pushed to 18 episodes, and there was just no time to deal with, really. Wasn't until last summer that I started doing work with regular therapy, like, you know, cognitive therapy, and then also vestibular therapist at Mount Sinai Hospital. I'm still processing it, and I'm still learning to manage it on a daily basis. I won't go into all the complexities here. I will on Patreon, but it's just not the typical hearing loss where you wear a hearing aid that just makes things louder. Vestibular system management is very challenging. How I feel vibrations in the front of my head when I speak, that's challenging. There's an anxiety element that has to be managed because it inflames or makes the vestibular system go out of whack. It also makes my eardrum sensitive. There's just a lot of systems at play. It's a weird kind of hearing loss. Just trying to explain it is difficult to explain it. I need to come up with a better elevator pitch. Like I was pitching a movie, right. I. It's like in 30 seconds or less, your elevator pitches. I feel hungover and drunk at the same time, and I can't hear right. That's my elevator pitch, Ian. That's it. And there's, like, over 50 million people just in the US who have hearing loss. So there's a really good chance you're working with someone in the arts that's also experiencing hearing loss. So this episode is about unmasking the invisible disability of hearing loss. Thank you, Ian, for helping me unmask my own disability. And I really want to get on and interview Marianne. Maybe I should do that. Agree. Agree. I'm Sean Hayden, and you're listening to season four of Stage Combat, the podcast. This is episode six, the way that I hear you. Marianne Galloway, welcome to Stage Combat, the podcast.
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Thanks for having me, Sean.
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I've been wanting to have you on the podcast for a couple of years now, but first of all, I just want to acknowledge that you are in my old stomping ground. I got my equity card as an actor in Dallas, Texas.
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A
That's Right. At Theater 3. Right.
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Well, I did it the old fashioned way where I had to work a number of weeks.
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A
Yeah, that's how I did it, too.
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Yeah. Yeah. So it was. It was Theater three. It was Dallas Shakespeare. We started talking, I believe, when the podcast first came out.
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Yes, I started listening to it, and then I think I sent you an Instagram message just letting you know how much it meant and how much I enjoyed it and how much I appreciated your candor and your vulnerability and your honesty.
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But we got to talk, and you were on our social media and talked about the type of hearing loss that you have. And. And as the listeners just heard when I was talking to my husband, Ian, I really wanted to do this episode last season. And as I was telling my husband, it was difficult to do given that I was struggling with my own hearing loss, my own invisible disability. So can you describe the type of hearing loss that you have, Marianne?
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Yes. I was born with my hearing loss. I had hearing loss in both of my ears. I wear hearing aids in both of my ears. So what I hear primarily is vowels. I don't hear consonants.
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B
And the way you've described it to me, Marianne, in your own words, is that when you hear speech, it sounds like the adults and Charlie Brown.
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Yes. And so what I've learned to do over the years is lip read to fill in the blanks. And there's also the way that the approach and the exit of the sound of a vowel also gives me information about what the words are around them, what the. The what's being communicated. I get a lot of context cues. I get a lot from facial expression, so I fill in the blanks a lot.
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So as we're doing this interview on video, it's obviously very important that you can see my lips. I'm not hiding it behind a microphone.
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A
Right.
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And then you're picking up the cues if I'm going up on a question or I'm laughing or something. The other emotional cues that you hear in the sound. Right.
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Yeah. The music of a conversation, the music of language.
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So, Marianne, the first time you told me that you only heard Vowels. You didn't hear consonants. The thought that went through my mind was that concept had never entered my mind as to how someone might process speech.
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Right. I think when people think of a deaf person, I think they think that it's black and white, that you can either hear or you can't.
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Right.
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And if you hear, then you must hear the way that I, as a hearing person hear, you know? But it's a spectrum.
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Huge spectrum. Huge, as I have come to learn.
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Yes. Welcome.
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Thank you very much. What's interesting, because I'm trying to imagine you, Marianne, always having hearing loss and navigating your world as a child, Right. Into becoming a really vibrant actor on the stage with hearing loss. And then someone like me that, you know, it just happens suddenly, and now I've got to adapt.
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Yeah. It's a different journey.
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B
So when you were growing up in your family, how did your family approach your hearing loss?
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Well, I think that my parents were doing the best that they were able to at the time. My mom didn't have the information that we have accessible to us today. So I was raised to, quote, unquote, pass as hearing. I was raised to overcompensate and to hide my hearing aids with my hair. I was raised to not share that I had hearing loss with anyone except my teachers, very quietly, at the beginning of a semester.
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B
So would it be fair to say that the environment you were in was to, quote, unquote, pass as normal, whatever that term meant at that time?
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Absolutely. And if you try to find a silver lining in everything, I got my 10,000 hours of acting in, I got it in real early.
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B
Oh, you mean to try to pass as someone who did not have hearing loss in society?
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Correct. Yeah.
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Did you know sign language? No.
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The only sign language I knew was from Sesame Street. There was an actor, Linda Bove, who was the quote, unquote, sign language lady.
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B
The sign language lady?
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A
Yeah, Linda. Yeah. And she. Back then, she had a segment where she would teach you different words. And so the first sign language word that I learned was butterfly, and it was from her. Other than that. But, you know, my parents were not using it. Certainly no one at school was using it. It was never offered to me as an option. As you get a little bit older, it started to become really clear that you get treated differently. And so what my. I think my parents, in their misinformed way, were trying to protect me from was going to happen anyway, which was being othered, being made fun of, being seen as different. But the problem was that I was Different. And I was spending so much energy trying to appear normal, I was playing at being normal, which inherently made me different anyway. So instead, they helped me to feel a better sense of self with it. An embracing of this is who I am, and who I am is okay, and who I am is great. And these are strategies for you to navigate the hearing world. But also, here are ways to connect with other people like you. And there's an entire culture that would consider you normal, too.
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Well, it's very much of. Keep your disability invisible. Right. I mean, that was. And if you do, you will have a better chance of making it in the world.
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Yep, absolutely.
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And what we want to do today is to embrace those disabilities that are not apparent to people necessarily from the outside.
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Right. I had worked on a production that was a partnership with a prominent deaf theater and another prominent regional theater. And that sign language lady, Linda from
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Sesame street, the one we were talking about.
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Right. The one that I had grown up thinking the world of, was actually in that production. And I was thrilled to get to be a part of that and be in her, you know, orbit. And at one point, I went up to. I had started to try to learn sign language with a computer program, which is a terrible way to try to
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learn a language because it was not taught in your family. That's what we were saying before.
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That's right. Right. I had no experience, so I was learning from the ground up on my own. And we were both washing our hands at the bathroom sink, and I was like, oh, I'm going to. I'm going to talk to her. I had harbored this hope in my heart my entire life that I didn't really understand or acknowledge until I was able to talk about it in therapy. But I had felt that there was this wall between me and the deaf community that was erected because of the way that I was raised. But if I was able to get on the other side of that wall, then they would be like, oh, God, thank God you're here. You made it. And I was trying to tell her that I grew up watching her and that she had taught me my first sign, which was butterfly, and I did not know how to sign. You know, I have 70% loss in this year and whatever. Like, I didn't know how to communicate that sort of data in sign language yet. She said, how deaf are you and who?
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Linda.
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Linda did. And I managed to express it to her. And she just looked at me and was like, you're very lucky to be here. Meaning, I was very lucky to get the job that I had because it was a deaf production, but it was also a hearing production. I mean, the entire point of the production was that it was being presented for a hearing and deaf audience, and it was being told by hearing and deaf actors.
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So she meant that in a good way. Yes. That you were lucky to be there. No, she did not.
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She meant that my position should have been given to a capital D, Deaf person.
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B
Marianne, what did that feel like, to have your TV hero tell you that?
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It was like, I'm not gonna cry right now.
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It still hurts.
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Oh, oh, that will hurt my entire life. Yeah, it was devastating because it's the
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feeling of never really belonging in a particular group because there's such a spectrum of hearing loss.
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Right.
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Among individuals. Right. So.
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Right, right.
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You can get trapped in this sort of nowhere land.
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Right. And even if you're willing to put in the work to learn sign language, there's a whole other culture that you also have to learn. And the struggles and challenges that I have as an individual who primarily operates in a hearing culture because my own children can hear, my husband is hearing, they know a little bit of sign language, but that's not our primary means of communication.
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Do you know what I hear from you?
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What?
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It can be exhausting.
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It is exhausting.
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Yeah. Just trying to not only navigate on a day to day basis, but where do you fit in?
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Right. And there's this divide, and I understand where the divide comes from between deaf with a capital D and lowercase D. Deaf slash hard of hearing. I understand historically how that happened, but it's taken years of study to be able to come to that understanding. Instead, I. When Linda, as I put upon her the role of being the representative of this deaf community, that I had been kept from my whole life, that she was going to be this ambassador and welcome me in, instead to be essentially rejected and told that I wasn't deaf enough.
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B
I want to talk about you. And I have talked before because you're not only an actor, but you've been a director as well. Talk about to me the way you used to at your first table read with your cast, the way you presented your hearing loss condition and the way you do now because something changed for you at a certain point. How did you used to present that?
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So what I used to do is at the very first table read, I would say, everyone, I need to let you know that I am deaf and I'm hard of hearing. I wear hearing aids. And I would say this very quickly, and I would be very apologetic. I would also try to, like, be super matter of fact about it. I would say, just so you know, I'm deaf. I wear hearing aids. I need you to know that I may not hear something that you say. And I need you to know that I promise you I am not being a bitch. I promise you I am not ignoring you. I just haven't heard you or I may have misheard something that you said. So I just need your face so that I can lip read but understand that the burden of communication is on me.
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You said the burden of communication was on you, Marianne.
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Yes, I would say that.
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Do you feel that way today?
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No. No. Oh, my God. I look back at who I was then, and I was like, oh, honey. You know, I was trying so hard not to be a burden on anyone, and I had such a fear of anything that I did wrong being blamed on me being deaf that I had more control over it if I assumed all of the burden of communication.
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And do you know what I hear in that account of what you used to say? It wasn't that you were trying to keep the disability invisible, but you didn't want it to be inconvenient for anyone.
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Absolutely.
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And so.
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I know this is tough.
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We minimize ourselves.
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We do.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely. And it's easy for people to kind of enfold our own minimization.
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Yeah. Because it's easier for them.
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It's so much easier for them versus
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we are a collective. We should be there for each other. I mean, good Lord, think of all the conditions and disabilities that anybody can have at any given time. There is no normal.
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Right.
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This awful word.
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Yeah.
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Like, so we need to take in that information. I need to do this for my friend Tom. I need to do this for Maryanne. I can use some help on this end. For me, that's what it should be. Right?
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Yeah. And to have grace for each other.
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I had to tell you because you shared that story with me before, and I thought, oh, you know, I have been minimizing it. And so I'm in physical therapy right now. I hurt my shoulder in the gym. Oh, God. No big deal. But I'm like, to the physical therapist, I need you to speak on this side. I need you to speak louder. I'm a little more direct about. In a nice way.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But I need this.
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Yes.
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And the response is very. Of course.
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Isn't that amazing?
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You're like, oh, that was easy.
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Yeah. Ask for what you need.
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Yes. Ask for what you need. Which is what we've always said on this Podcast.
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Don't be afraid to take up space. You are not a burden. I mean, I can't tell you. I literally have T shirts that say all of these things.
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B
Hey, I want to talk about your hearing. Hearing aids, because you've told me about this before. So what they always tell you is they're so discreet, and they are. I mean, they're so tiny now. And people will say it as a compliment. Oh, I could. I can't even tell. You know, I'm still trying to negotiate my hearing aid, and that's a long process, but. Oh, I. I didn't even see it. Sean, you can't even tell when you got your last hearing aids. You sort of took a different approach.
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Oh, dead.
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B
Tell me about that.
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So not this set, but the set before this one, I think it was. It was 2020, and I had gone in. I needed to get new hearing aids, and I saw these very colorful versions on display, and I was being offered ones that would blend in with my hair and my skin tone. And I was like, okay, but there's all these ones that were these. Some of them were glitter. Some of them were. They were really cool. I was like, what. What about those colors over there?
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B
Were they, like, bright colors and stuff?
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A
Yes, they were like neon pink and neon green and purple and, like, electric blue. And I was like, that's way cooler. And she said, they're mostly for children. I said, well, do they come in adult sizes? She said, well, yes. I mean, it's the same hearing aid. Those ones are just marketed to children. And I was like, so I could get those colorful ones if I wanted to. She said, yeah, of course. And I was like, well, then can I get one neon pink and one neon green? Because my daughter's favorite color is pink, and my son's favorite color is green. And she was like, sure. So that's what we ordered, and that's what I wore. And that was a big step for me. It was the first time that I actively did not care what Joe Schmo on the. On the street, what anybody walking down the street thought of the fact that I wore hearing aids. And it was also a complete change from what I had grown up with. It was no longer, be discreet. Hide. It was, no, look at them. This is part of who I am. Look at me.
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There's almost. And I mean this in a good way, an act of defiance.
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It is. It's an act of defiance against that
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thing that you had to always keep secret.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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Yes. It's an act of Defiance against being told that you are not who you are.
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B
That must have felt incredibly powerful.
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It was. And they looked really cool, too.
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B
Well, I mean, this comes up a lot in this podcast. It could be when we're talking about someone experiencing trauma or a mental health issue. But that thing, that thing that we have kept secret, that we have held onto for so long, when we finally release that, when we unveil it, when we talk about is powerful.
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It is.
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Okay, Marianne, I want to walk through what challenges you may have. You, Marianne, as an actor in Dallas, auditioning for shows, as a person with hearing loss, and we start with the audition. What is that like for you?
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Well, this has been a journey. And I used to hide them. I used to try to incorporate that into my acting. That. Nope, I'm just another one in the
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cattle call, you know, I'm like all these other people.
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A
Exactly. Like I'm no different. Which is absurd, because we want to be different, right? We want them to remember. But I didn't want them to remember me because I was deaf, especially because I am also a singer, strangely enough. And I didn't want them to assume that I was not going to be able to be in a musical because I was deaf. It was that black and white thinking
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that you can't possibly sing if you have that amount of hearing loss, right?
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And even if I prove to them in the audition that I can sing, I didn't want them to have the assumption or the unconscious bias of saying, well, sure, she can sing, but, you know, she's going to have to harmonize with these people, and she's going to have to hear the orchestra, and all of this is going to be going on. We don't want to have, you know, one more thing to think about.
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B
It's easy for you to think. If I reveal this, it's going to open even more questions. And how do you handle that?
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Now I've grown to a place where I will reach out ahead of time. And if it's a musical, I'll say, is it possible for me to have a few minutes just in the environment of the room, the audition room, before my actual audition? Because I have these needs because I am deaf. And those needs are, I need to understand how the sound behaves in the room. I need to understand how my hearing aids are processing the acoustics of that room. I need to understand where I am in relation to the keyboard or the piano and how that information is coming to me. And I need to communicate with the accompanist more than Someone who doesn't have a hearing loss.
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B
I have not auditioned since the hearing loss, but I've been studying with my acting studio. And what I learned I had to do was because sound is different in every room, even from week to week, it depends on, is the air conditioner on, is the heater on, how many people are in the room? I found that I needed to. And I would tell my acting partner and the acting teacher, I need to say a few words in the room so I can hear how that sound is being processed. Because if you don't sense and feel your voice in your body, then you're not in the scene.
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Absolutely.
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B
And at first I felt really weird about asking for that, and now I. I don't hesitate. And I assume if I ever audition again, I would ask for that as well.
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A
Yeah, yeah, you need it. And it's an easy accommodation for them to give you, as long as they know ahead of time.
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B
So the next thing I'm thinking about is the reader. There's a reader in the room sitting in a chair, and most of the time these are not really actors or they're actors and they're not really giving you much. But usually they've got their face in the pages. So obviously that's not going to work for you, Marianne.
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Right.
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B
And so you ask them, you let them know that you need to see their face.
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A
Yeah, and I let them know even, like when I make my audition appointment, this is part of your own self advocacy by saying, hey, this is what I'm going to need in terms of the room. This is the information that I need communicated to the reader. Will I be able to do that the day of, ahead of time? Or is there a different way that I can get that information to the reader? You know, ask for engagement about how the information that you need communicated is going to get to the people that you need it communicated to so that your needs can be met.
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B
Yeah. Okay. So what I'm hearing from you is don't just trust that because you gave that information to whoever took the call or the intern that it's going to be communicated. Ask how will it be communicated so that you kind of know.
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A
Right.
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B
What the communication procedure is going to be after that.
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A
Right. And involve yourself in that chain of communication.
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B
Then you're cast in the show. So obviously the director's going to block the show where the director places the actors. And you need some accommodations with that in terms of being able to see people's lips when they communicate. Perhaps one side of your body is Better for transmitting sound. Right. And do you ask for that?
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A
Yes, I let the director know. It's now grown to a point where it's such a part of my identity that there are times where I'll get cast because of who I am in its entirety, including my deafness. But someone may not know how to help you. I have to have a conversation with the stage manager and say, listen, this is what I hear. This is what I don't hear. These are the challenges that I face. This is what I need. I need to be in communication with you throughout the process as we're blocking, because I may need a cue light. I may need to ask for adjustments in blocking. I may need a visual cue of some sort. And when those kind of things are folded into the rehearsal process, it's so much easier. It's so easy to do.
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B
It is so easy to do. That's the thing.
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A
Right. Even if you. From any perspective, any member of the creative process, if you are coming to it with an open heart and an open mind and you're able to listen and you're able to have dialogue about it, it is so easy.
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B
So, Marianne, this was a more emotional conversation than I expected. Like, from my end, I'm saying, yeah, it just means so much to talk to you, Sean. No, I mean. And I know there's a lot of people out there listening with their own invisible disability, you know, that have struggled, are struggling with the same issues, and I just think that you've had a lifetime to learn things. I'm not saying that it's not a struggle for you, but the knowledge that you have collected during your lifetime to forge your own path is so valuable, and I'm so grateful for you to share that.
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A
I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to share it. I don't celebrate that you're having to go through what you're going through with your own hearing, but I celebrate the fact that I know you and that we've been able to connect about it and that it's been helpful in some way to have someone that you can talk to about it, and that helps you think about different aspects of it. That is so important. Important. So thank you for reaching out to me and letting me talk to you about this, letting me in to your journey.
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Coming up on the next episode of Stage Combat, the podcast we're returning to Roanoke Island. It's an island off the coast of North Carolina and the site of the iconic outdoor theater spectacle the Lost Colony. Last season on this podcast, Court Watson told his story in which he alleges he was assaulted by Tony Award winning costume designer William Ivy Long. After Watson and another man, Michael Martin, came forward with their stories, Long was seemingly exiled from Broadway in 2020. However, this past season, news leaked out that Long was secretly working on the Queen of Versailles on Broadway. In light of Long's return, we'll be visiting with Court Watson again and for the first time on this podcast, Long's other accuser, Michael Martin, who will share what Long's return has stirred up for him. I get a lot of pushback from people that are like, well, I was traumatized and I didn't have to run and go tell my story. Yeah. And it's like, right. But do you understand that, like the way is being paved so that if you wanted to, you could. Yeah. And also don't have to make me feel like I'm being selfish by bringing attention to this. What's happening is you're suppressing your emotions. You had a trauma and you're suppressing it and it's going to come up in your body. It's going to come up in the way that you psychologically deal with the world. It's going to come up in the way that you deal with your family and your possible children. And you feel like people don't deserve to talk about that because it's so prevalent. That's coming up. Return to Roanoke Island. Let us know what you think about our conversation with Marianne Galloway. What's on your mind after hearing this episode? Are you struggling with your own hearing loss or another kind of invisible disability? We would love to hear from you. Send us a DM at instagramtagecombat the podcast ig, where you can also follow us or email us@stagecombatthepodcastmail.com Just a reminder, nothing in this episode should be considered medical advice, but I do want to remind you to have your hearing checked regularly. It's important. Did you know you can hear more bonus content for this episode at Stage Combat at Patreon? There's more of my chat with Marianne, plus I'm sharing some inside information about my own disability. Just follow the link in the show notes. If you believe in the meaningful content we're producing, you can support us for just $5 a month so we can produce more episodes for you. And the great thing is there's no commitment. You can enjoy the bonus content you want to explore for a month or maybe three months or throughout the year. And if you are an existing Patreon member, thank you for making this podcast happen? This episode was edited by Alex Griffith. Mixing and sound design were by Justin Gerrish. This episode was written and directed by me, Sean Hayden for Heywood Productions, llc. Hey, be sure to hit follow on your podcast platform. That way you won't miss a single episode of Stage Combat. So do it right now. And while you're there, why not rate us five stars and leave a review to let others know what this podcast means to you. I hope today and every day brings you an opportunity to claim your story. Stage Combat is a production of Heywood Productions, llc.