Baltimore Center Stage is accepting applications for the position of Assistant Audience Services Manager. The Assistant Audience Services Manager assists with visitor services including performance lobby activities and hospitality, house management and volunteer ushers, and the execution and coordination of in-house events and guest rentals.

Specific Duties include:

House Management

Baltimore Center Stage is accepting applications for the position of Assistant Audience Services Manager. The Assistant Audience Services Manager assists with visitor services including performance lobby activities and hospitality, house management and volunteer ushers, and the execution and coordination of in-house events and guest rentals.

Specific Duties include:

House Management

The National Science Foundation recently awarded UMBC a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award totaling more than $550,000 to expand the university’s High Performance Computing Facility (HPCF). The funding will go toward upgraded hardware and increased computing speeds for the interdisciplinary core facility, which supports scientific computing and other complex, data-intensive research across disciplines, university-wide. As part of the NSF grant, UMBC is required to contribute 30 percent of the amount that NSF is providing to further support the project, meaning a total new investment of more than $780,000 in UMBC’s High Performance Community Facility.

Meilin Yu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is the principal investigator on the grant. He replaced Matthias Gobbert, professor of mathematics, who served as principal investigator on previous grants for the core facility in 2008, 2012 and 2017 on behalf of the 51 faculty investigators from academic departments and research centers across all three colleges.

“The MRI grant will allow us to upgrade the UMBC HPCF with state-of-the-art computing nodes and networks,” explains Yu. “It will boost sustained growth in research and education relating to computational science and engineering, including but not limited to, high performance computing, cybersecurity and big data, atmospheric physics, environmental science and engineering, and life sciences.”

Through the facility, researchers can run simulations with a range of applications, including industrial designs and weather prediction. UMBC faculty will utilize the upgraded system to complete simulations and modeling tasks significantly faster than the current system allows, explain Yu and Gobbert. The updated technology includes accelerated graphics processing units that, in addition to speeding up calculations, will “improve the quality of digital visualization,” says Yu.

The HPCF governance committee is working with UMBC’s Division of Information Technology to purchase and implement the upgraded hardware, including central processing units, which completes computing tasks, graphics processing units, which manages the visual displays on computers, and cores. “We hope to have at least 72 nodes in service to the UMBC community by spring 2018, with 16 core Central Processing Units, Graphics Processing Units suitable for integer/single-precision and double-precision arithmetic, and cutting-edge many-core Intel Xeon Phi KNL processors with 68 cores,” Gobbert explains, adding that by increasing the number of nodes, UMBC’s HPCF is worth more than $2 million.

UMBC faculty are able to use the facility for their research at no charge, and they receive technical support from graduate assistants as well as staff in UMBC’s Division of Information Technology. The upgraded facility will support projects from researchers in more than a dozen academic departments across all three colleges at UMBC. Gobbert shares that he expects this community of scholars will expand further as the core facility continues to grow. “I am most proud of the fact that such a large number of faculty total put their trust in me to lead the writing and management of this proposal,” he said. “Our success at the NSF validates that the strong interdisciplinary cooperation of many researchers from across the campus is valued there.”

The HPCF was established in 2008 in response to a university-wide need for technology to support high-performance computing. The initial system had 35 nodes, and was funded by UMBC’s Division of Information Technology, the Office of the Vice President for Research and faculty contributions. Over the past nine years, the HCPF has grown to include over 300 nodes, and has been used by more than 400 researchers and students for their work. The facility has led to more than 250 publications, including 100 in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to 30 theses. The recent funding will support the expansion of the facility to include 84 nodes, which individually communicate with each other, and cutting-edge processors. The oldest portion of the HPCF will be replaced with with more powerful nodes.

Banner image: High-performance computing equipment. Photo by Andrew Hart via Flickr, shared under CC BY-SA 2.0.

For most of us, a trip to the theatre means relaxing in a plush auditorium chair for a couple of hours while performers share their finely honed skills for our amusement. We laugh, we cry, and we clap wildly as the stars bow before the falling curtain.

But, what do we miss when we forget about what happens backstage? For the upcoming production of William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, directed by Eve Muson, (running Nov. 9 – 19) students and theatre faculty worked diligently for weeks to design and build sets, sew costumes, install lighting and sound plots, and develop characters that will transport their audiences to Christmas in 19th century Russia.

UMBC theatre students experience a bit of every piece of it behind the scenes in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, no matter what their area of focus. Actors build props. Stage managers work on lighting. Everyone uses a sewing machine at some point. For a production as lovingly detailed as Twelfth Night, there’s simply no such thing as a small part. 

 – Jenny O’Grady

Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 except where noted.

Student props master Andrew Morgan (L) discusses his plans for constructing a cross for a priest’s costume with theatre faculty member Gregg Schraven ’97, theatre. Morgan works closely with other members of the crew to figure out who needs what, and how it will be used on stage.

A close-up of the prop master’s work.

Students and faculty work to create a stage set based on this small model built by set designer and theatre faculty member Nate Sinnott.

Student Jaimie Greene pulls large stencils created with a computer numerical control (CNC) router, from a dolly to help decorate Twelfth Night’s winter-themed set.

Student builders discuss one of the most complicated props constructed for Twelfth Night – a baby grand piano that has been gutted to make room for a digital piano so it can be played on stage through the house sound system.

Far above the Proscenium Theatre’s stage, students install a lighting plot to match the festive nature of this comedic script.

You can’t beat the view of stage from the catwalk, 32 feet from the ground. It’s not for the faint of heart!

From beyond the work being done on set, assistant light designer Dante Fields prepares the lighting console for tech.

Students also learn how to design and sew costumes for the performers, both by hand and with the aid of sewing machines.

The costume shop offers tools and notions of every type and color. You never know what you’re going to need for a show at UMBC!

This colorful, riotous production of Twelfth Night requires costumes of the same level, including these dresses, designed by faculty member Eric Abele and produced by students in the costume shop. You can see some of Abele’s other sketches behind the dresses on the wall.

Members of the cast of Twelfth Night practice amid a test of an indoor “snow” shower. Break a leg, everyone!  Photo by Greggory Schraven ’97.

* * * * *

The UMBC Department of Theatre presents Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, directed by Eve Muson, November 9 – 19, in the Proscenium Theatre of UMBC’s Performing Arts and Humanities Building. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit UMBC Theatre online.

Join us for a day of transparent conversations about findings, their implications, and challenges and opportunities of conducting research within the aging services field. The forum will begin with a keynote presentation by Dr. Robyn Stone, Senior VP of Research at LeadingAge, and will foster conversations throughout the day between researchers and senior living providers. Aging services professionals, researchers, family caregivers, students, faculty, payers, and educated consumers are welcome and invited to attend. For more information, please contact Allison at 410-552-3238, or email Allison.ciborowski@integrace.org.

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Sebastian Deffner