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.

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."

"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.