| Deaf
Actor Signs Up for Broadway Stardom
Tyrone
Giordano wins raves as Huck Finn in a play that mixes music,
speech, sign language and Mark Twain. Like Huck Finn, Tyrone
Giordano savors the simple pleasures. As a child, he said, “I
would lie in the night, with the stars, listening to crickets.”
Born
mostly deaf, he gradually lost hearing. Today he wears hearing
aids and communicates using speech and sign language. The crickets
are just a memory. “I can’t hear them,” said Giordano, 27. “I
really miss that.”
Those
memories are with him each night on Broadway, where he stars
in the musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. Originally mounted at Los Angeles’ Deaf West Theatre,
the production uses both deaf and hearing actors. Giordano
performs the role of Huck using American Sign Language, while
hearing actor Daniel Jenkins stands nearby, speaking and signing
for him. Likewise, other deaf actors are paired with hearing
doubles who lend their voices in speech and song. Critics also
are speaking up for Giordano: Variety said, “his marvelously
expressive face, his agile body and deft hands, form their
own sort of chamber orchestra.”
Born
in Tarriffville, Conn., to deaf parents, Giordano battled self-doubt
until he attended Gallaudet University-the nation’s foremost
college for the deaf-in Washington, D.C., where he studied
English. But after a friend took him to an acting audition
in 1999, he was hooked on theater.
“It
doesn’t matter what language you use,” said Giordano. “A smile
is a smile, a frown is a frown.”
What’s
next in his future? “I would love to someday have a speaking
role,” says Giordano, who communicates offstage with both speech
and sign language.#
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