Ironwood Native Reflects On His National Television Acting Debut

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Friday, September 12, 2008 - The following article originally appeared in SIGNews (www.signews.org). The article was written by Ironwood native Raymond Luczak. He is the author and editor of ten books. He grew up in Ironwood and Houghton. He's had thirteen of his stage plays preformed in three countries. He now lives in Minneapolis. His website is www.raymondluczak.com.

When a friend emailed me to suggest that I audition for the part of an angry Deaf playwright on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, I was bemused. I had done some acting in a film some years before, but I still felt awkward. Nevertheless I had seen thirteen of my stageplays performed in America and England. I didn't think that gave me enough qualification for the role. I happened to be visiting New York City with my boyfriend Lou for his mother's 70th birthday celebration there, so it was really a fluke that I happened to be in town.

That Saturday I decided to email the casting director with a B&W photograph and summarized my background as playwright. An hour later, she said I was to show up at 12 noon on Monday, and with her email was a PDF of my scenes. The excerpts gave a bit of background on my character Larry Formosa along with a scene that I would have to perform.

When Lou and I met with an actress friend of mine, I asked her for advice. She said that there was usually no clear reason why one actor was chosen over another. I realized that whatever I did, I shouldn't take it personally. This was simply a job interview. With that in mind, I studied my scenes and thought about my character Larry. In my scene, I was to be rather belligerent towards Goren, Vincent D'Onofrio's character. I had admired Mr. D'Onofrio's previous work in film so this felt surreal. Me opposite him? No way.

Monday I showed up fifteen minutes early. The waiting room was a bleak affair with chairs and some backpacks next to them. A few Deaf actors while waiting studied their scenes. I thought about why I'd liked certain actors who had auditioned for me, and their self-confidence usually sold me. I decided that I would project self-confidence. Five minutes before noon, an interpreter hired to help with the auditioning process beckoned me.

The office was crammed with five people: the director, the producer, the casting director, the interpreter, and a camerawoman. I smiled and I sat down on the couch. The director said, "Why don't you start?"

I went through my scenes. He said, "Why don't you make your signs smaller?" I smiled. He had clearly worked with Deaf actors before, because when I worked with them on my DVD projects, they often had to scale down their signs for the camera.

I went through my scenes again, thanked them, and left.

I left for Washington, DC the next day. That Thursday while in DC, I got a barrage of emails from the casting director, the wardrobe supervisor, and friends who had tried to get a hold of me all day. I had won a small part, not as Larry (that part went to Darren Frazier), but as Dean's Colleague. I returned to New York and showed up early on Monday morning for a ride up north to the Bronx. I was to talk with Deanne Bray on the videophone but I didn't see any lines in my scenes.

The director informed us that we would not be voiced or subtitled. Whatever we said would be accessible only to those who knew American Sign Language (ASL). Deanne and I brainstormed about our dialogue, but we were stumped until she brought up a friend's struggles with a hearing ASL beginner student who had almost no facial expressions. It turned out that she had facial Botox injections.

We decided to focus on linguistics and Botox. We did our lines again and again after each camera setup was changed. All of this took about three and half hours. On the night of April 3rd, I showed up on Deanne's videophone: "B-o-t-o-x inject-face facial-expression stiff." It was so trippy to see myself on national television. I was now a budding TV star! Would I audition for another television program again? Probably not, even though my L&O experience was great. There are many others definitely more talented than I am, so I was grateful for the experience.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Back in 1996, Raymond met with several members of Ironwood's deaf community at our area deaf club. The club met monthly at the Knight Club, and was sponsored by Deaf Services of America (DSA). At the time, Mr. Luczak had just published a book of poems called St. Michael's Fall.

In the book, Luczak remembered seeing "Ironwood's only deaf man, Gramps" sitting in front of Hulstroms. "Gramps" was a very dear friend of mine. His real name was Glen Morrison. It just so happened that "Gramps" was at the deaf club meeting, and he and Raymond had a very happy reunion.

"He worked evenings at Hurley's Holiday Inn, in its kitchen, where he was a dishwasher." Luczak wrote about Glen,"Afternoons he sat in front of the bar near Santini's Gift Shoppe, his hands folded on his lap, until on kid or two came with their hands fingerspelling their names or something until he smiled or laughed. He would then fingerspell, slowly, so that they could understand it. I stared at his lips, hardly moving."

In his book Luczak mentioned blue Deaf-Mute cards that "Gramps" passed out. I found that kind of amusing because I printed those cards for him at the College. He used them to introduce himself. On one side of the card was the Manual Alphabet, and on the other was a brief introduction beginning with "Hello, My name is 'Gramps'"...

At the deaf club meeting back in '96, Raymond invited our members to attend a poetry reading from his new book. The reading took place at the Theatre North. In addition to our deaf members, a couple DSA volunteers came to the performance. While Raymond signed his poetry, Cortland Gieb read from his book. All of our volunteers are familiar with sign language, but few of them ever took the time to fully learn it. After watching Mr. Luczak so eloquently sign his poetry, one volunteer, Amanda, was so impressed that she begged me to teach her.

Amanda started signing to her hearing son from the time he was born. Many parents have learned that ASL makes child rearing much easier. Kids can learn to sign much sooner than they can develop speech. The ability to communicate with a parent through sign removes much of the frustration babies often feel. They know what they want, but they are not usually able to let others know what they want. By using simple ASL signs, they can say they are hungry; they are thirsty; they need a diaper change; and many other things. Most signing parents report that their hearing children develop speech at an earlier age because of their developed signing skills.

I'm sure Mr. Luczak doesn't realize what an impact he has made in the lives of others. If it wasn't for his poetry, Amanda may never have taken the time to learn ASL. She probably wouldn't have taught her son to sign, and their lives would have been quite a bit different.

By the way, if ever you get a chance to watch a re-run of  Raymond's performance on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, I think you will be truly impressed. When was the last time you've seen someone from Ironwood on a popular national television series?