About Our Alumni
A theatre degree from UMBC can lead to a number of diverse career paths.
UMBC Theatre graduates become successful working actors and designers at professional theatres across the country, as well in TV/Film. Graduates have started their own theatre companies, received prestigious awards and grants, become professors at universities, produced their own films, and more.
Our graduates wanting to continue their theatre training have gone on to study at various institutions including University of Maryland, College Park, Towson University, Texas Tech University, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, University of San Diego, University of Iowa, Mary Baldwin University, New York University, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, California Institute of the Arts, University of Indiana, Yale, and the list continues to grow!
2024 – 2025 Featured Alumni
Tommy Malek, BA Theatre, Theatre Studies (’13)
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!”
Lloyd-Marcus Ekpe, BFA Acting (’20)
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.”
Kaydin Hamby, BA Theatre, Design & Production (’19)
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, BA Theatre, Design & Production (’24)
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.”
Featured Alumni Archive
Read past features from alumni, across all of our majors, on our archive page.
The best way to keep up with our alumni is to follow UMBC Theatre’s Facebook and Instagram.
Contact Us
If you’re an alumni of the department – we’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!
Send us an update at theatre@umbc.edu.