 | ||
People also search for Tony Cummings, Anne Kanengeiser, Steve Routman | ||
Lisa Portes is a Cuban-American theater director. Lisa Portes serves as the head of the Masters of Fine Arts directing at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She is the daughter of a Cuban father and Nebraskan mother. Her father immigrated from Cuba to the United States when he was 15 years old. Portes parents met in Creighton University located in Omaha, Nebraska and later moved to Madison, Wisconsin to attend graduate school. According to Lisa Portes she was the “daughter of an Air Force brat and Cuban exile.” Lisa Portes was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Being the oldest of the family Lisa would often make a play and show it to her father, this is when she realized how creating a play would force her father to stop and watch. She would us her younger brother and sister as actors in her plays.
Contents
Education
Portes' involvement in theater continued into high school when she first started acting. Portes continued her higher education at Oberlin College located in Oberlin, Ohio, where she graduated with honors with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Theater in 1988. She had a very difficult time being accepted into a graduate school as an actor, Lisa Portes than decided to apply as a director due to her father's advice. She received the Fulbright Scholarship and was accepted into the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of California - San Diego she graduated with a degree in Theater-Directing in 1992.
Works
Some of Lisa Portes's productions include This is Modern Art a play written by Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval. The play was staged at Steppenwolf Theatre. Other plays directed by Lisa Portes include Ghostwritten, After a Hundred Years, Concerning Strange Device from the Distant West, all written by Naomi IIzuka. Lisa Portes has also directed plays by Julia Cho such as The Piano Teacher. Some more of her recent works include Offspring of the Cold War written by Carlos Murillo and Wilder: An Erotic Chamber Musical written by Erin Cressida Wilson, Jack Herrick and Make Craver. Lisa Portes has directed plays around the United States ranging from the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Steppenwolf theater, and the Guthrie Theatre located in Minneapolis,Minnesota.
Community involvement
Lisa Portes is one of the founding members of the Latina/o Theatre Commons otherwise known as the LTC. The Latina/o Theatre Commons (LTC) was formed to circumvent a traditional producing structure that has not produced Latina/o theatre at a rate commensurate with the rapidly growing population of Latina/o people in this country. The group was formed in May 2012 when a group of eight latina/o theatremakers led by Karen Zacarias came together under the auspices of what is now HowlRound and the idea for the Latina/o Theatre Commons was born. The first ever LTC National Convening was held in 2013 at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. The Latina/o Theatre Commons has also created the 2015 carnaval of New Latina/o Works. Lisa Portes was in charge of facilitating Latin@'s in Theatre: Building a Movement- Forwarding the Work by Creating Strong Relationships and Allyships at the 2015 Theatre Communications Group National Conference.