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.

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!”

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."

Jalon Payton currently works as a freelance stage manager mainly based in the Baltimore/DC area. Towards the end of his time as a student at UMBC, he began working as a stage manager for play readings and workshops with Roundhouse Theatre & Taffety Punk Theatre in DC. Following these workshops, he made his debut at Baltimore Center Stage for the first show of their 2021/22 Season, The Swindlers: A Tru-ish Tall Tale, as a Production Assistant. His recent area credits include 10 Seconds (Imagination Stage, Stage Manager), Is Edward Snowden Single? (Single Carrot Theatre, Stage Manager); The Folks at Home (Baltimore Center Stage - world premiere, Production Assistant); Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery (Everyman Theatre, Assistant Stage Manager), The High Ground (Arena Stage - world premiere, Assistant Stage Manager). Jalon has experience working out of town as an Assistant Stage Manager at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin for 2 summer seasons (The Brothers Size, A Raisin in the Sun, The Royale, and Anton’s Shorts). In Fall 2023, Jalon will be returning to Arena Stage as an Assistant Stage Manager for the east coast premiere of the new musical, Swept Away.

Jalon was able to create a stable foundation out of his passion and drive for stage management at UMBC, thanks in part to his Stage Management Professor at the time: Samantha Paradis.

“My connection with Baltimore Center Stage began because Sam passed them my information for a position in the spring of 2020. While the show I was supposed to work on was postponed, the connection I had established with them was not forgotten. It led to my first PA position, which then opened up a lot of opportunities for me. Recently, Sam was able to visit APT to see The Royale, and it's a great feeling when your mentor gets to witness your professional work. It’s been really good getting to have conversations with Professors Eve Muson, Susan McCully, and Susan Stroupe (to name just a few) about what I’ve been up to since graduating when I periodically visit UMBC.  Watching friends who were my classmates continue to do new and exciting projects post college has been really inspiring to watch from afar.”

You can keep up with Jalon by following him on Instagram, or learn more at his website.

"After graduating in 2020 and spending a year away from theatre due to the pandemic, in 2021 I moved to NYC to work as an assistant costume designer for opera, drama, and dance at The Juilliard School as part of their Professional Apprentice Program. After my season at Juilliard, I was a freelance design assistant at several regional and off-broadway theatres before starting my MFA in Costume Design at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.

While my first year at Yale has certainly been challenging, it's also been incredibly rewarding, and I feel that my time at UMBC thoroughly prepared me for both graduate school and the professional world. As a student I loved UMBC's emphasis on professionalism in and outside of the classroom; my experience working on shows like Girls on a Dirt Pile and Gwyneth in conjunction with my classes helped teach me how to be a successful working designer. They also sparked a love for developing new work that has carried over into my career, including being the associate costume designer for At the Wedding, a new play that premiered at Lincoln Center Theater last year.

I received an excellent design education at UMBC, but non-design classes unique to UMBC such as Mods with Susan Stroupe and Capstone with Eric Abele have also been instrumental in helping me build a career, succeed in graduate school, and figure out what kind of theatre artist I want to be. Capstone especially is a class that I benefit from every single day, and my biggest piece of advice to current students would be to really invest in using the resources provided in that class to set yourself up for success after graduation. Even though I graduated into a very uncertain world, Capstone gave me a path to make a way for myself once theatres reopened, and encouraged me to put a lot of thought into who I am and who I want to be not only as an artist and collaborator, but also as a human being."

Learn more about Caroline and her costume design work at carolinetyson.com.