Jane and Miro Nowalski

Imagine a career where you get to meet Madonna, Roseanne, and Tom Arnold among other celebrities at NBC’s Saturday Night Live as a stagehand. This is what Miro Nowalski does for a living as a Union Stagehand Carpenter for 18 years, and one of his career perks is setting up stages for SNL.In Ryn, Poland, Miroslaw (“Miro”) Nowalski was born to hearing parents in 1956 and was raised in Wroclaw. He attended the Wroclaw School for Deaf Children until 1971 then enrolled into ZSZ for Deaf Children, majoring in carpentry and graduating three years later.

7 year-old Miro in Poland

IN 1977, Miro emigrated to Chicago where he worked two years at the Crescent Cardboard Company gluing blank, plain paper to cardboard. Eventually, he took to California in 1979 as a carpenter, where he ultimately fell in love with his current spouse Jane Fleitman, a native of New York City and Lexington School for the Deaf graduate. Soon after, they moved back to New York City and married in 1984 bearing two daughters, Nikki and Emilia.

A couple years later, he established his current career through Theatrical Stage Employees Union in New York City as a stagehand, setting up stages at NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL), NBC Sports, NBC News, and TV soap operas for such programs As The World Turns and Guiding Light. One of Nowalski’s career highlights was shaking hands with President Clinton backstage at New York University where he set up a stage for a forum meeting on Mideast politics with the university students.

Miro and Jane Nowalski now reside in Frederick and have enrolled their daughters at Maryland School for the Deaf, although Miro commutes to New York City during the week for work. His journey from Poland, California, New York to Maryland is remarkable, but he claims his biggest accomplishment was moving to America-why? “Freedom!” he exclaimed, living by the philosophy that “Everything in life is right timing.”