Mateo Custodio

This is Mateo Custodio, an upcoming freshman at Georgia State University! He is preparing to study film and media, and theater, and he is so excited to be involved and affiliated with Georgia State. Mateo has been intrigued with the arts from a very young age. He started with competitive ballroom dancing for seven years, where he discovered freedom of expression through physical movement. Then in middle school, he discovered his love for theater and acting! He had his first professional audition for Disney acting with no professional experience or education. He wasn’t able to follow through, however, he had his debut as an actor in Shrek The Musical Jr. He started a new passion and journey with dance combined with singing, combined with acting. The very next year, Mateo jumped into hands-on experiences with technical theater, or as he used to say, "the background stuff." When high school came around, he had an educational theater experience so he auditioned for Dr. Phillips High School's very reputable theater magnet program. After being accepted, he took his freshman year to utilize the deeper, more serious hands-on experience of technical theater. He had the opportunity to hand-build sets, hang and program lights, do costume work, and participate in all the unseen magic that goes on during shows backstage. The first show he did that for was Grease The Musical followed by Monty Python's Spamalot. Mateo's high school musical theatre performance debut was in Escape to Margaritaville where he received his first award nomination for best comedic timing by Florida Thespian judges. Following that experience, he had the opportunity to build sets for My Fair Lady and Into The Woods The Musical as well as to perform in Mean Girls The Musical (high school version). In his senior year, his school was the first high school selected to be given the rights to perform Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Mateo had the coolest opportunity to debut as Severus Snape and Lord Voldemort for Dr. Phillips High, in his school district, as well as in Florida! He is obsessed with the thought of performing and is looking forward to expanding his education as well as experiences in performing, whether he’s dancing competitively, singing and acting on a stage, or acting behind a camera!