Erica Lauren Maholmes, M.F.A. '22

Outstanding Young Alumni Award Winner

• Freelance lighting designer; Olathe, Kansas

• Major: Theatre

Erica Lauren Maholmes is a storyteller, designer, assistant, and technician for live theatre and dance. She has worked for Cleveland Play House as a lighting apprentice, Illinois Shakespeare Festival as a master electrician, the 2022 National High School Institute-Cherubs as an assistant master electrician, and Longwood Gardens as a performance technician. Her design portfolio has been displayed internationally at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial as part of the Emergence Portfolio Library. She was a Design Wing Fellow for the 2022 Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, offering a design perspective in a new play lab format. She served as an artist and a midwife in Term 5 of The Midwives Artistic Collective and is an artistic board member of Cats Cradle Theatre.

She’s designed and assisted as an artist across the country including Nebraska, Idaho, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Ohio, Indiana, Maine, Texas, Oregon, Utah, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, and New York. Some notable theaters she’s designed or assisted at in Chicago alone include Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, University of Illinois Chicago, and A Red Orchid Theatre. Regionally, she has worked at Alley Theatre in Houston; Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island; Cleveland Play House in Cleveland; Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in St. Louis; KC Rep in Kansas City, Missouri; Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise, Idaho; and Great Lakes Theatre in Cleveland.

Maholmes was recently published in Light Collective's 2024 Collected Light Vol. 3 - Women in Entertainment Lighting, where images of her work can be seen along with information on her as an artist. As part of this publication, her work has been displayed at the 2024 Prolight + Sound Conference in Frankfurt, Germany.

She made her Broadway debut in 2024 as the assistant lighting designer of The Notebook and returned to Broadway shortly after as one of the associate lighting designers of Mary Jane at Manhattan Theatre Club featuring actress Rachel McAdams.

Maholmes is an alum of the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas, West Chester University, and Illinois State University. She is also a proud member of United Scenic Artists 829 and Black Theatre Network.

From 2021-23, she served on the executive board of Design Action, an inter-generational coalition of BIPOC and white designers working to end racial inequities in the North American theater. This work includes panels, workshops, portfolio reviews, town halls, micro-grants, and a plethora of other initiatives focused on BIPOC designers. She has served as a member of the advisory board since 2023.