Deaf American actor who played the mediator Riva in the second-season Next Generation episode Loud as a Whisper, a story developed from his own suggestion.
Howie Seago is a deaf American actor and director who has worked with the National Theatre of the Deaf and on stage in the United States and Europe.
He approached the producers of The Next Generation with the idea of a story about a deaf character, which became the second-season episode Loud as a Whisper. He plays Riva, a celebrated mediator from Ramatis III who communicates through a chorus of three interpreters.
When the chorus is killed on Solais V, Riva decides to teach sign language to the warring factions as the basis for peace. Seago has said he wanted to avoid an ending in which the character was simply cured.