Actor Timothy Simons will deliver this year’s commencement speech at the University of Maine in Orono.
Simons is from Readfield and studied theater at UMaine before building a career in television and film.
He is best known for his role as Jonah Ryan on HBO’s political satire “Veep,” and most recently received a Critics Choice Award nomination for his role as Sasha in the Netflix series “Nobody Wants This.”
UMaine says Simons has remained connected to the university and helped establish the Sandra E. Hardy Theatre Scholarship Fund, which supports theater students. Simons says he has a special connection with Hardy, who was his first acting teacher.
Simons will speak at two UMaine undergraduate commencement ceremonies inside Alfond Arena on Saturday, May 9.
The school says a morning ceremony at 9:30 a.m. will include graduates from the College of Earth, Life and Health Sciences, the Maine Business School, and the Division of Lifelong Learning.
An afternoon ceremony at 2:30 p.m. will be held for the College of Education and Human Development, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Maine College of Engineering and Computing.
Simons says there was a mix of a large public university and a close-knit campus community in Orono.
“I liked that it was a state school — a big flagship school — that also still felt pretty small,” Simons said. “By the time I left there, I felt like I knew most of the people on campus.”
