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Going Full Circle
The seeds of Acebo’s love of drama
were sewn early when the native of
L.A.’s San Fernando Valley would
accompany his parents to see plays at
the big playhouses like the Ahmanson
Theatre and the Schubert.
“I vividly remember seeing productions
and being more amazed about
the world that was kind of opening up
than anything else,” he says. “I would
go home and doodle. I must have
been 10, and I would copy or create
what I had just seen in little designs
of my own.”
Acebo thought he had stashed all
theatre interests away with the childhood
designs when he enrolled as a
political science major at Cal Poly San
Luis Obispo. Still, he found himself getting
involved with the theatre department.
“They had this great little community theatre-like minor
there. Now it’s a major. In that theatre department, you got to
do a little bit of everything,” says Acebo. “I realized I wanted
to work behind the scenes in the technical and design parts.
So I decided I had to get more training.”
So Acebo went to UC San Diego for his MFA, where Dryden
was an instructor.
Christopher Acebo’s set for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
“His clarity of vision was apparent from very early on, as
was his thoughtfulness about text and character,” Dryden
says.
Acebo and Rauch met while Rauch was still the artistic
director at Cornerstone Theatre Company. Playwright and
director Juliette Carillo had worked with Acebo on a production
at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre and recommended him
to Rauch, who was looking for someone to design costumes
David Cooper
www.stage-directions.com • June 2010 17