Artslandia at the Performance: Portland Playhouse Nov/Dec 2014 | Page 32

A VISION
COMES TO LIFE

From research to inception, the
process of creating a set design
involves many steps. Here,
Acebo shares what it took to
bring A Streetcar Named Desire
from paper to the stage.

06

Do you think designers
tend to read a text
differently than directors
or actors do?

07

I do. I read plays for the landscape. I read plays for how they move
through space and time in terms of what’s happening in the play, but
also in terms of the time of the theater we’re working in. I’m asking,
is it speaking to audiences in a contemporary way? With, say, Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof, I can’t just create a mansion in Mississippi, I have to
think about our audience watching it in the Bowmer [Theatre] and
what are they bringing to it, what is the play telling us about today. I
think actors go deep in a different way, more about the humanity of
the characters. And directors have to balance both of those things.

Bill Rauch has said that one of the reasons
he asked you to be associate artistic director
at Oregon Shakespeare Festival was that he
wanted a designer as the link between the
artistic and production departments. To your
mind, what advantages does that bring for the
designers and for the company as a whole?

RESEARCH

In the best case scenarios, I would hope that
designers feel a sense of connection with the
leadership at the theater, that someone in
that office understands how they work, their
culture and the challenges of being a working designer. I also think that, internally,
our staff can access my designer brain when
challenges or opportunities come up.

How did you come to
join the Oregon Arts
Commission, and what do
you see as your particular
contribution there?
SKETCHING

08

I was approached by the governor’s office
and the chair of the OAC. I think as an
artistic leader at a large organization and
as a working artist, I’m in a strong position to advocate for the arts and artists. I
have a particular interest in representing
Southern Oregon, theatre arts and the
movement for inclusion and equity.

09
MODELING

ON STAGE

What do you see as some of the flaws —
or conversely, some of the virtues — of
the arts ecosystem in Oregon?
I love Oregon. I’ve lived in Ashland for
eight years, and I’ve embraced what I
think of as the Oregonian character,
being on the edge of the frontier. That
edge encourages adventure. You see
it in our food culture, our politics and
progressive thinking, in our outdoor
and sports exploration. The arts need
to continue to wrestle with that sense of
adventure. We have to feed a community that hungers for connections to the
mind, body and spirit through the arts.

I read plays for the
landscape. I read plays
for how they move
through space and
time in terms of what’s
happening in the play,
but also in terms of
the time of the theater
we’re working in.

10

Obviously the infrastructures
and mechanisms of art and
culture in the state can’t just
be made whole cloth, but are
there design-oriented ways of thinking
that can help improve arts policy or other
commission work?

If we’re talking about government funding
or support, that comes to fruition when
[the arts have] an economic impact. We
can look at the contributions that the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many
other arts organizations have made to our
state in terms of job creation, tourism,
economic impact on communities, equity
improvements and national recognition
for excellence. Those impacts are justification for people in power to acknowledge
that we should value the arts just as much
as we value the Oregon Ducks or our
beautiful mountains ... We have to tell
our story and align the arts with the other
factors that make Oregon a destination. I
think we have leadership in key positions
[who] recognize that the arts can complete the frontier map of greatness for our
state. But more importantly, regardless
of the economic impact, the arts bring an
intrinsic value to our communities, to our
visitors and to all of our lives. .

See Chris Acebo’s stage designs at upcoming Oregon Shakespeare Festival productions: world premieres of Fingersmith by Alexa Jung from the novel by Sarah Waters; Head Over Heels by Jeff Whitty and the music of The Go-Go's;
and American Classic Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Visit www.osfashla