Reviews
Here's a selection of reviews from recent productions.
Suzanne in Eureka Day Marin Theatre Company, 2025
““It has a crucial hinge ..the knockout performance Porter delivers… it’s as if Porter metamorphoses. Layers of entitlement, defense mechanisms and bluster peel away. What’s left is a raw, pulsing organ of hurt and need.”
Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, September 2025
“Suzanne could easily be played as a silly caricature, but in the hands of Porter, she’s real, small and frightened. ..It’s a virtue of this show that Suzanne earns our sympathy, fair and square. And it’s a reminder of who is vulnerable to being wooed by fearmongering people in trouble."
Neily Raymond, Daily Californian, September 2025
Tracey in Sweat Center Repertory Company, 2023
“Lisa Anne Porter is electric with energy as Cynthia’s best friend and coworker Tracey, which is a lot of fun when they’re carousing but downright dangerous when cooler heads are needed.”
Sam Hurwitt, San Jose Mercury, April 2023
“Porter and Riddley give standout performances in very tough roles that ride a rollercoaster of raw emotions.”
Steve Murray, Broadway World, April 2023
"Lisa Anne Porter is a marvelously compelling Gruach, forthright and defiant, demanding her due and unyielding in remaining queen no matter her circumstances. Her eye contact seems to never waver, and there’s a sly humor in the way she toys with people’s perceptions of her. This is not the villainous Lady M of Shakespeare, but she is formidable.”
Sam Hurwitt, Marin Independent Journal, September 2022
Gruach in Dunsinane Marin Theatre Company, 2022
“Whenever Porter’s onstage, the show steadies. Her Gruach might be injecting mischief into the air, her Mona Lisa smile concealing cunning mixed with genuine feeling, but so lightly does Porter wear her character that even her mystery brings clarity.”
Lily Janiak, SF Chronicle, September 2022
Julia in Fefu and Her Friends American Conservatory Theater, 2022
Porter’s Julia, in a solo, bedridden scene somehow bridging wake, seance, confession and confrontation, makes ghosts feel as real as cold breath on the back of your neck, all with the audience seated just inches away from her.”
“Lisa Anne Porter’s portrayal of Julia is one of the evening’s most arresting performances…. As the evening progresses, Lisa Anne Porter’s Julia provides us with a disconcerting, climatic showdown with Catherine Castellanos’ Fefu that proves the star power of both actors.”
Suzanne in Eureka Day Aurora Theatre Company, 2018
“In envisioning a very liberal and very privileged Berkeley private school, Jonathan Spector’s play is so crisply defined that you might have to periodically remind yourself that you haven’t already met these characters in real life.
...Longtime hyper-involved volunteer Suzanne (Lisa Anne Porter, bouncing up and down with the enthusiasm of Richard Simmons) is equally vehement in bulldozing her views over everyone else’s and then reproaching herself for doing so.”
Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, 2018
Erica in A Bright Half Life Magic Theatre Company, 2015
“Recurrent fraught moments …bring home the leaps of faith each lover must make. But perhaps none more so than Porter’s hilariously inept, and deeply moving, half-direct, half-roundabout attempts at marriage proposals… In the hands of Porter and Hayon, the spare, incisive poetry of Barfield’s writing exerts a pretty strong pull."