LISA PORTES is a director, educator, advocate and leader whose aim is to define and promote a new American narrative that is driven aesthetically and politically by the world we are becoming, rather than the world we’ve been. She seeks to forge an American theatre that expands our understanding of who we are, blows open our assumptions of what our world looks like and extends us into the great, big, messy experience of being human in the 21st century.
Portes has created work regionally for California Shakespeare Theatre, Children’s Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, the Denver Center, Guthrie Theatre, Olney Theatre, Round House Theatre, and South Coast Rep. In Chicago she has directed for Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Victory Gardens, Timeline Theatre, American Blues, Silk Road Rising, Next Theatre and Teatro Vista. New York credits include productions at Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep, and developmental work at New York Theatre Workshop, the Flea Theatre and the Public Theatre. Recent projects include the world premieres of Laughs in Spanish by Alexis Scheer (Denver Center) and Clean/Espejos (South Coast Rep), Rightland by Ike Holter (Victory Gardens) and I Come from Arizona by Carlos Murillo (Children’s Theatre Company), as well as Quixote Nuevo by Octavio Solís (Round House Theatre and Denver Center), The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa Fasthorse (Cincinnati Playhouse), Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías (Denver Center); and Breach: A Manifesto on Race in American through the Eyes of a Black Girl Recovering from Self Hate by Antoinette Nwandu (Victory Gardens).
In 2016, Portes received the SDC Zelda Fichandler Award which is dedicated to "an outstanding director or choreographer who has transformed the regional arts landscape". She is the first freelance director to have been so honored. Other awards include the TCG SPARK Leadership fellowship, the NEA/TCG Career Development grant for Directors, and the Drama League Directing Fellowship.
A leader with over 20 years of experience in the field, Portes serves on the board of The Theatre Communications Group and the executive board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. In 2012 she co-founded the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), a national advocacy network and thinktank that promotes Latinx stories as central to the American story. She serves as lead producer and chief fundraiser for the LTC Carnaval—a tri-annual festival of new Latinx plays produced in Chicago—and the El Fuego Initiative, which seeded ten regional and world premieres over the course of the past three seasons by the playwrights selected for the inaugural 2015 Carnaval. In June 2017, the LTC was honored by the TCG with the 2017 Peter Zeisler Award.
From 1993 – 1998, Portes served as Associate Director on The Who’s Tommy--staging it’s Toronto, Frankfurt and London productions as well as the 1st National U.S., UK and Canadian national tours. She also served as Associate Director on the 1st National Tour of Titanic.
Portes heads the MFA Directing Program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. During her tenure she has revitalized the curriculum, updated the admissions processes, diversified the program, created one of the strongest production programs for graduate directors in the nation and established a proven pipeline into the profession exemplified by such directors as April Cleveland (‘19), Artistic Director, Exodus Ensemble, Ben Raanan (‘20): Artistic Director, Phamaly Theatre in Denver, Mikael Burke (’18): Princess Grace Award, New Generations Fellowship, and Jeff Nominated Director; Jacob Janssen (’18), Artistic Producer, Third Avenue Playworks in Sturgeon Bay; Michael Osinski (’14): Drama League Directing Fellowship; Marc Pinate (MFA ’13): Artistic Director of Borderlands Theatre in Tuscon, Ian Frank, Jeff-Award winning direcctor, Krissy Vanderwarker (’10) and Keira Fromm (’08) Jeff nominated Chicago directors.
From 2002 – 2017 Portes served as Artistic Director of Chicago Playworks for Young Audiences. During that time she shifted a theatre based in European children’s classics to a theatre whose mission is to produce work that directly reflects Chicago’s specifically urban, contemporary and multi-ethnic audience. She has commissioned, directed and/or produced new work for the TYA canon including Night Runner by Ike Holter, Augusta and Noble by Carlos Murillo, Barrio Grrrl by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans: A Salsa Musical by Karen Zacarías.
Portes attended Oberlin College where she graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to Colombia and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of California - San Diego. She lives in Chicago with her husband, playwright Carlos Murillo and their two teenagers, Eva Rose and Carlos Alejandro.
