FEATURE STORY
"Mayor of Kingstown" Filming Gives Alumni and Students a Taste of Hollywood
BY TY DEMARTINO '90
"Mayor of Kingstown," starring Jeremy Renner, filmed in Cumberland, Md., this past summer and FSU TV/film alumni and students got into the action. Photo credit: Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+.
There was a shoot-out at the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad in Cumberland. Gunfire erupted. Train passengers scrambled. And it happened again… and again… and “one more time for safety.”
The controlled chaos was a scene from Paramount+’s gritty hit series “Mayor of Kingstown” starring Jeremy (“The Avengers”) Renner. The show, set in the fictional city of Kingstown, Michigan, needed a train station for several pivotal scenes, and showrunners chose Cumberland to film for three days this past June. The production, which usually shoots in Pittsburgh, not only gave Western Maryland an economic and morale boost but also opened the door to invaluable experience for Frostburg State University alumni and current students interested in TV production.
How FSU got involved in the production is worthy of its own TV subplot.
The scene began when the “Kingstown” crew came to Allegany County to scout locations and dined at Bella Napoli Italian restaurant in Cumberland. The show's assistant director, Cindy Serigatto, asked restaurant owner Levi Lutz if there was a local college that could provide production assistants for the shoot. Lutz contacted his friend Brian Lang ’04/M’14, FSU IT field technology manager, who quickly put out the call to the University’s Emerging Media Department. From there, interested students and alumni were recruited by FSU faculty.
Alumni and FSU students who served as production assistants at the Western Maryland Station turned "Kingstown Station" included (left to right) Maria Hite '25, Sam Ellmore, Drake Rose, Isaac Kneisley, Justice Warner and Mason Rounds '26.
Alum Maria Hite ’25 was no stranger to film sets, though nothing of this magnitude. She works as a freelance video producer and served as second assistant camera on the indie Christmas movie “The Peppermint Twist” (written and directed by FSU alumnus JW Myers ’89).
“The experience I had on that film crew definitely helped me feel more confident walking into a much larger production,” said Hite.
As PAs, Hite and the others worked mostly on “lockups,” helping control noise and prevent the public from wandering through the train set, whether by accident or by design.
“Most of my time was spent redirecting curious locals who wanted to get a glimpse of Jeremy Renner just before they unknowingly wandered into the background of a scene,” she continued. “I also performed simple runner tasks such as moving trash cans and coolers, bringing Chapstick to background actors and sourcing ice-cold Red Bull for the assistant director. So, you can say I’m basically famous.”
Recent Frostburg graduate Mason Rounds ’26 had worked only on student productions before serving as a PA on the Cumberland set. Rounds was surprised by the level of detail that goes into each scene.
“It basically takes one workday – which was around 13 hours – just to get four scenes,” he said.
Drake Rose, a current Emerging Media student, originally signed up to play a background extra before the call went out for production assistants.
“Being an extra is cool, but what I’d really love to do is try to work on the actual set behind the scenes,” said Rose, who also recruited some of his film-interested friends from Allegany College of Maryland and the local community. With the quick turnaround from job offer to being on set, Rose and his friends crammed to learn how to be a PA.
“We were all scrambling, watching YouTube videos and winging it to find out what to do and try our best,” Rose said. “Cindy [Serigatto] was a great leader to us. She was so nice and really encouraged us on the first day to absorb everything, ask questions and observe on set.”
Rose had the job of cueing background extras inside the train station to “run out frantically” during the shoot-out scene. He was also able to position himself behind the episode’s director in video village and observe him in action. And when the production wrapped for the day, Rose and other PAs had the chance to socialize with crew members at local hangouts.
In addition to the professional opportunities, Rose noted the economic boom the filming brought to Western Maryland, including sourcing food for craft services from local restaurants. According to the Maryland Film Office, the “Mayor of Kingstown” production generated a $500,000 economic impact during its one-week stay in Allegany County.
But the on-set experience and the connections FSU students and alumni made were priceless.
“Being able to associate with those people and see how they operate was so eye-opening to me,” said Rose. “We all went into it scared and unaware and came out with an experience where we learned so much.”
Hite is hopeful that the three-day experience will inspire former and current film students to follow their passions in the TV/film industry.
“It’s one thing to read about production in a textbook and another to actually put in a 12-hour shift on your feet in the blazing sun. These students did it with smiles on their faces, sunburns on their arms and their ears ringing from the constant walkie-talkie chatter,” Hite said, admitting she will be proud of their accomplishments when the episode airs. “I want to see the names of Allegany County students scroll across my TV in my own living room and in living rooms across the world.”
