Vicky is an actor and producing artist currently working in the Baltimore area. They were seen most recently in Romeo and Juliet at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company and a staged reading of An Enemy to the People by Nigel Semaj at Johns Hopkins University. Vicky has performed at Baltimore Center Stage (Our Town, Young Playwrights Festival), The Voxel (Call Me By Any Other Name… Just As Sweet, Salty, I Will Eat You Alive), The National Aquarium (Voyages: Chapter 7), and The Strand (The Long Christmas Ride Home). Vicky has also directed staged readings of Selkie at Red Emma’s Bookstore and THE SUPREMEZ: LIVE AT ROOKIES at the Voxel for the T4T4T Festival. Vicky works regularly with Submersive Productions and is currently on the producing team for their next project, The Pansy Hour.

Vicky graduated in Spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, having a career in theatre looked nearly impossible. Afraid of losing valuable skills learned from professors like Lynn Watson, Eve Muson, and Chelsea Pace, Vicky was able to do Zoom readings with friends and performed in two staged readings with the Black Classical Acting Ensemble at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company led by Gerrad Taylor. Alongside many fellow UMBC alumni, Vicky saw auditions slowly begin to emerge, and more opportunities began to arise.

“If I could tell a UMBC theater student anything, it would be to never give up on yourself. There were many times during college when I was struggling in multiple different areas, from financial instability to depression. My friends and classmates have become such a valuable support system. We tell each other about opportunities, go to each other’s shows, and help each other develop new work. It’s always a relief to see familiar faces in the audition room. With their encouragement, I feel like I can do anything. Even when the future feels completely unpredictable, believing in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals will help you succeed.” 

Jeremy Mayo ('17) is currently the Senior Director of Technical Production for the Sphere in Las Vegas. Sphere is a groundbreaking venue launched by the Madison Square Garden Company in 2023, featuring the world's largest video screen, over 167,000 speakers, and many other cutting edge production technologies. Sphere was recently named the #1 venue in the world of any size by Pollstar and other agencies.

Jeremy received a BA in Theatre from UMBC in 2017, focusing his studies in lighting design under Professor Adam Mendelson. Jeremy is proud to have been part of the Linehan Artist Scholar's program, administered at the time by Professor Doug Hamby, and recently helped pilot an alumni mentorship program through the scholarship.

Following his studies at UMBC, Jeremy worked as the Master Electrician at Florida Reperatory Theatre, and soon afterwards started his MFA in Lighting Design at the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music (CCM), where he now volunteers as a member of the Dean's Advisory Council. Graduating in 2020 during the height of the COVID pandemic, Jeremy pivoted his career to Hollywood working as a creative technologist at a boutique studio startup (XR Studios). There, he produced extended reality and augmented reality content for various artists and organizations such as Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Kid Cudi, Disney, NBC, Snapchat, Riot Games, and many others. In 2022, Jeremy left XR Studios to form a small consulting agency (Unclaimed Creative) with a friend and cohort from graduate school.

Jeremy credits his time at UMBC as the foundation for his career. Specifically, the accessibility and flexibility of the degree program gave him an ability to work professionally throughout the duration of his studies which provided a massive advantage in experience upon graduation. UMBC's close relationships with local organizations like the Everyman Theatre in Baltimore were also instrumental in opening doors to unique opportunities.

Jacob Mueller is an Architectural Lighting Designer and Consultant for Illuminations, Inc. serving Architects, Developers, and Interior Designers on both residential and commercial projects. Illuminations is an agency that represents best-in-class architectural lighting and design products from around the globe. In this role, Jacob became Lighting Certified by the National Council on Qualifications for Lighting Professionals.

"You’re probably thinking - but that’s not theatre. Architectural Lighting Design is all about focus, ambiance, and drama. The scenery rarely ever changes. People are still wearing costumes and moving through space. Triggers and Heaps abound. It’s 9-5 drama without the late nights and 10/12s. It’s lovely."

Before the current chapter in his career, Jacob served as a Project Manager for Barbizon Lighting Company where he managed theatrical lighting and rigging infrastructure installations across the Mid-Atlantic Region. Jacob managed high profile installations at The White House, The National Security Administration, The U.S. Naval Institute, The National Marine Corps Museum, The NEW Spy Museum, The American Indian Museum, The American History Museum, and The Kennedy Center.

Professor Adam Mendelson once explained lighting design with a fish tank metaphor noting 6 different perspectives. Lighting is hard to visualize and even harder to explain, so Jacob now finds himself using the fish tank concept in design meetings with his own clients. Jacob also credits Mendelson with the best advice he received while at UMBC. During an especially tense tech rehearsal, Adam pulled him aside and said, “You need to make decisions faster. Whether it’s the right decision or the wrong decision - it’s the only way you’ll know if you made a bad decision.”

In addition to his accomplishments in the theatre department, Jacob was also honored to be a Linehan Scholar and continues to be thankful for the unique opportunities it provided.

When Jacob isn’t working, he spends his free time fly fishing or lending a hand on the family farm back home in Easton, MD. Jacob resides in Washington, DC with his dog, Beasley.

Lloyd is an actor, musician and teaching artist working in the DMV. He is currently a Company member at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) and a member of their Black Classical Acting Ensemble (BCAE).

After graduating, Lloyd initially found some work on camera in a few student films - theater was greatly affected by Covid-19 so he turned his attention to commercials and short films. He would eventually star in F^¢k 'Em R!ght B@¢k by Harris Doran which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was nominated for Best Short Film 2022 Grand Jury Prize and won several film festival awards. He was cast as Joseph Asagai in CSC’s 2021 production of A Raisin in the Sun, which led to a Helen Hayes recommended production of Keith Powell’s Sophisticated New Ones. His relationship at CSC would blossom to starring in the BCAE’s all Black production of Macbeth (matinee and a “remount” at Ellicott City), The Oresteia, Romeo & Juliet 1975, and the upcoming Mary Stuart (Spring 2025).

“UMBC was instrumental in getting me to where I am now in my career. I fondly remember Eve Muson’s words to me 'slow down-stand up straight'. I also reminisce about the roles I got to play at UMBC; they were usually against my “type” and I know now that the challenge was to expand my skillset. I am most grateful to Gerrad Alex Taylor, Eric Abele, Temple Crocker, Lynn Watson, Chelsea Pace and the faculty who genuinely saw me and encouraged me on this journey.”

The UMBC theater department is all over the DMV…seriously! And that is thanks in part to the individual artist's ingenuity, talent and skill but also to the professors who began fostering connections with industry professionals early. I remember auditioning for Noah Himmelstein (Associate Artistic Director of Everyman Theater), and attending a seminar by Vincent Lancisi (Founding Artistic Director of Everyman Theater) for Eric's Capstone class.

I felt very taken care of at UMBC and I fondly recommend our Theatre program to anyone who asks."

Four years of far-flung freelancing after graduation, Kaydin landed back home in rural Maryland with as much time spent working as a full time artist as he had spent at UMBC. His resume was strange and varied. From sound designing Shakespeare on California cliffs, to writing music while bartering with goat farmers, Kaydin’s dedication to the craft he learned at UMBC was a constant undercurrent to his artistic endeavors. Professor Adam Mendelson's words constantly echoed in Kaydin’s head: “follow your signal path,” a platitude of troubleshooting advice for audio engineers that doubles as a mantra. One must “follow your signal path” within.

Kaydin’s work came to a halt when multiple health concerns coalesced and asked him to come home and recover, his “signal path” rerouted. Physical therapy would need to be tended to every day for at least a year, which coincided with the choice to base himself in Frederick in both his career and personal life. The Maryland Ensemble Theatre had been an artistic home to Kaydin since early days of his freelance career, and the Weinberg Center for the Arts was hiring stage technicians to work shows at both the Weinberg and New Spire Arts. These three theatres occupy a single block of Patrick street in the heart of Downtown Frederick. Kaydin’s integration into the Frederick’s arts and entertainment district has proven mutually beneficial.“I fulfill an important niche of the artistic ecosystem here, and I’m really proud to say that what I learned at UMBC informs my artistic and technical work every day. I can fall back on my instincts knowing that they are coming from my education and I can trust them,” Kaydin says about his work downtown.

Kaydin Hamby is company member at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre. Past MET credits include Sense and Sensibility, The Three Swingin’ Little Pigs, Angels in America Parts 1 & 2, Revolutionists, Meteor Shower, Admissions, Circle Mirror Transformation (Sound Designer), Head Over Heels (Guitar 1), Christmas Carol, The Tempest (Audio Engineer). Kaydin is the musical director of MET Comedy Night's "Off Key: An Improvised Musical” where he provides guitar accompaniment for a group of improv performers (and a drummer!) to sing along to, which Kaydin describes as “basically the improv version of sound design.” His work as a stage technician and audio engineer at the Weinberg and New Spire Arts is ever-changing and demands close attention to detail. Kaydin knows that “a piece of genius forethought during load-in might save the show later that evening.” Kaydin can be heard around town with his guitar, writing his own music, practicing for Off Key, coming up with ideas for sound designs, or just taking a break from the noise.

To learn more about Kaydin and listen to samples of his work, go to KaydinHamby.com.

Tommy Malek is an award-winning theatre & film professional based out of Columbia, MD who specializes in the crafts of directing, acting, and design (wig & costume). Tommy proudly served as the Artistic Director of both The Maryland Theatre Collective [originally the purple light theatre company] from 2012 to 2024 and Silhouette Stages from 2017 to 2019, and has served as the resident wig designer at Classic Theatre of Maryland in Annapolis since 2021. Recent directing/choreography credits include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with Compass Rose Theater (nominated for seven 2025 Helen Hayes Awards including “Outstanding Director of a Musical” and “Outstanding Costume Design”), Spring Awakening, Agnes of God, RENT, and Little Women the Broadway Musical with The Maryland Theatre Collective, 9 to 5 the Musical with Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre, and Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein with Silhouette Stages. Recent/favorite acting credits include "Marvin" in Falsettos and "Tateh" in Ragtime the Musical: In Concert with Maryland Theatre Collective, "Man 3" in Putting It Together with Colonial Players (WATCH Award win for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical), "Emcee" in Cabaret with Silhouette Stages (WATCH Award win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical), and "Benny/Iona" in Del Shores’ Southern Baptist Sissies with Spotlighters Theatre. Currently, Tommy is playing “Mordcha the Innkeeper” (as well as understudying Tevye & Lazar Wolf) in Fiddler on the Roof with The Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre in Lancaster, PA, and after that, will be traveling to Princeton, IL to star as “Edna Turnblad” in Hairspray with Festival 56 this summer!

“Training with the Department of Theatre at UMBC laid an invaluable foundation for my professional life which still carries me through to this day. The program, led by its top-notch faculty and staff, instilled in me a strong sense of self as an artist, an exquisite technique in the craft of acting, and the abilities to explore, research, & keenly refine my work. I had the great fortune to witness and learn from some of the very best directors I’ve worked with to this day, and continue to utilize what they taught me now as a professional director and actor myself. The great Eve Muson’s frequent instruction “don’t pretend to do it—REALLY do it!” proved to be not only terrific guidance in acting, but words to recall and live by in every facet of one’s professional life. I am forever grateful to UMBC’s theatre program for all it has given me, and I will be a proud Retriever for life!”

Sanjana Taskar ('19) is currently in her last year of her MFA in Acting program at UNC Chapel Hill and will graduate in May. For the past three years, she has been a Resident Company Member with PlayMakers Repertory, one of North Carolina's premier and professional theatre companies on the East Coast.

Sanjana credits the UMBC Theatre department and its outstanding faculty as a cornerstone of why she wanted to continue her education in honing the craft of acting. Her cumulative experience at UMBC gave her the skills in approaching her graduate classwork with a sense of play and curiousity - and she lovingly carries the words of advice of all her undergrad professors as she embarks on each project.

Sanjana's last show in grad school was the world premiere of Bekah Brunstetter's (NBC's This Is Us; Broadway's The Notebook) The Game - a comedy about a woman's journey in navigating her misgivings about marriage, friendships, and video games. Sanjana plans to move to New York City - but hopes to return to the DMV often to continue to work in its vibrant theatre scene.

Learn more about Sanjana's work on her website: www.sanjana-taskar.com

Katie Kopajtic (she/her) is a writer, actor, and producer, having brought about a series of works in the past decade with her production company Tres Brujas Productions, which she runs with her wife, Monica. Recently Katie has been touring her solo show Modern Witches, described as “like Fleabag and Sylvia Federici got really into [Virginia] Woolf” which had a successful run at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is slated for a three week run this spring in New York City. Both audiences and reviewers have lauded Modern Witches, calling it “wildly imaginative” and “thoroughly and lovingly researched,” among other praise.

In addition to continuing work on Modern Witches, Katie is in post production with her feature documentary Heritage Fantasy, which tackles themes of identity, self-doubt, and the struggle to find self-worth as an artist outside the success metrics determined by a capitalist market.

Her fiction and nonfiction stories and essays have been published by Variant Literature, Cream City Review, Catapult, Electric Literature and more. She is currently employed as a narrative designer for a web3 science fantasy gaming project, in addition to teaching youth improv and working as a freelance editor.

“My UMBC theatre degree gave me the tools to be a great actor, but beyond that a deeper understanding of how to tell a great story using any medium. This has to do with how UMBC teaches theatre; no matter the specific role you are studying, you are first and foremost a storyteller, and you have a responsibility to bring your best work to the table. Holding myself to that standard has been an asset through the many variations in my artistic career, both as an individual artist and as a collaborator. 

My advice to anyone graduating is: *~marry rich~* - be patient with yourself. The feeling of success is not constant. Sometimes you are coasting on a strong current, but most of the time you are treading water. Learn to embrace every element of the artistic process: the bitter taste of rejection, the euphoria of a rehearsal breakthrough. Follow curiosity. Be a good theatre citizen: see shows, read new plays, cheer on your peers. It sucks to feel alone but you are never alone. It will all be okay!"

To check out Katie’s work, visit her website: www.katiekopajtic.com

Renata Taylor-Smith is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she received a B.A. in Theatre Design and Production. Renata is a freelance lighting designer, programmer, and theater electrician. Her recent credits include Lipstick: A Queer Farce (Fells Point Corner Theatre, Lighting Designer), Slime (University of Maryland Baltimore County, Associate Lighting Designer), and Ride the Cyclone (Assistant Lighting Designer). She is currently the Lighting/Electrics Fellow at Berkeley Repertory Theatre as part of their Next Generation Fellowship Program.

"After graduating I knew I wanted to pursue a fellowship because I felt that I still had a lot of growing to do as a designer, and I thought that receiving mentorship from seasoned lighting designers and master electricians would be an invaluable learning experience. I spent my senior year applying to theater apprenticeship and fellowship programs all over the country and was very ecstatic to receive an offer from Berkeley Repertory Theatre. I relocated to the Bay Area in August and have spent the last few weeks working under the mentorship of Berkeley Rep's Lighting Supervisor Fred Geffken and assisting Lighting Designer Mextly Couzin on Mexodus, a live-looping hip hop musical. Through the fellowship I'll have the opportunity to be the assistant lighting designer for the theater’s mainstage shows and work with lighting designers from all over the country.

The training and learning I did at UMBC gave me a strong foundation for the work I am doing at Berkeley Rep. UMBC's theatre department was so important to my growth as an artist and as an individual. It was through UMBC that I discovered my interest in lighting design and had the opportunity to explore different areas of lighting. Taking Adam Mendelson's lighting design courses and assisting him on shows both inside and outside UMBC, working at the scene shop, and having the opportunity to design UMBC productions were all experiences that prepared me for working at a professional regional theatre and taught me to be confident in my voice and my abilities. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to work at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and I would not have been able to get here without the people I met and learning I did at UMBC."

Anderson Wells has been working as a performer, producer, teacher, and administrator in the DC theatre scene since 2013. They have worked with Arena Stage, Arts on the Horizon, Brave Spirits Theatre, Encore Stage and Studio, The Hub, The Klunch, Pinky Swear Productions, Rep Stage, Silver Spring Stage, Solas Nua, Studio Acting Conservatory, Studio Theatre, Treehouse for Creative Kids, and The Welders. Currently, they are the Managing Director for Constellation Theatre Company, and Founding Artistic Director of Highball Productions. Anderson also performs across the country as their drag persona, Vagenesis and has won multiple titles including becoming the first ever National Bearded Empress.

"I always knew I wanted to be a performer. My time at UMBC gave me the space, tools, instructors, and community to focus and strengthen my skills as a performer. Along the way I was surprised to find that I had picked up skills that gave me a kind of theatre business savvy. I learned how to market the performance skills I’d gained and make myself desirable as an artistic collaborator. As I worked my way through the DC theatre scene, I was exposed to new and exciting forms of art and started to find new skills like teaching, directing, poetry, and drag.

Vagenesis and all of her success are absolutely a product of the acting training I received at UMBC. I infuse my understanding of character, beats, structure, and storytelling with every lipsync performance. I’ve even built my own theatre company centered around combining acting and drag. I never expected this to be the path I would take, but I am so grateful for it.

The best advice I could provide to any aspiring actor, performer, or artist - especially if you are fortunate enough to study at UMBC - is to allow the art to work through you. You can’t force it to happen. Take your training and strengthen your body and mind and allow yourself to be a vessel for whatever you are meant to do. And never take yourself too seriously - theatre should be FUN!"

Learn more about Vagenesis and Anderson here.