[7] Portes began working at DePaul University in 2000 and is currently leading the three year MFA Program while teaching classes.

[5][8] Primarily a director of new American plays and musicals, Portes' work has been seen regionally at California Shakespeare Theater, Guthrie Theater, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, McCarter Theatre, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Portes served as the Associate Director of the Tony Award-winning musical The Who's Tommy, and staged its international productions in Canada, Germany, and the U.K, as well as its 20th anniversary remount at the Stratford Theatre Festival in 2013.

[10] 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.

[5] Some of Portes's productions include This is Modern Art a play written by Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval.

Other plays directed by Portes include Ghostwritten, After a Hundred Years, Concerning Strange Device from the Distant West, all written by Naomi Iizuka.

[5] Notably, Portes served as the Associate Director of the Tony Award-winning musical The Who's Tommy, and staged its international productions in Canada, Germany and the U.K., as well as its 20th anniversary remount at the Stratford Festival in 2013.

One night, one crew completes a huge piece which incite backlash from the community as opinions on the validity of graffiti as art are polarized.

[16] Kevin Coval spoke out against the play's criticism stating that "Graffiti operates at the level of metaphor for voices that exist at the margins of culture who have been deliberately excluded or erased from dominate discourse".

[23] In 2013, the play was remounted at the Stratford Theatre Festival where this "rock opera", one critic mentions, "cranked up the volume for vocal excitement and general rocking-out purposes".

[24] Another critic mentions how the musical is also an interesting commentary on "the advances – or not – in disability rights in the post[World War II] era".

[25] Wilder: An Erotic Chamber Musical ran in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City from October 14, 2003 to November 14, 2003.

[5] Portes received the 2016 Zelda Fichandler Award, which is dedicated to "an outstanding director or choreographer who has transformed the regional arts landscape".