Conversations with Rhianna DeVries

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhianna DeVries.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hi! I’m Rhianna DeVries, and I’m an artist. Specifically, I’m an actor, director, producer, and overall theatre-maker; but more than anything, I’m an artist. This year marks a decade since I began working professionally as an actor, a fact which I sometimes am stunned to realize–both because time has flown by so quickly, and also because I am frequently overwhelmed with gratitude and joy to have the privilege of being a full-time artist.

I’m originally from Fountain, Colorado, which is where I fell in love with reading. And, after realizing that acting was essentially main-lining reading, I was hooked. I performed in plays and musicals throughout high school, but when it came time to choose what to study in college, I originally planned to study English and Business with the hopes of eventually becoming a fiction writer. My plans changed, though, once I toured the Theatre Department at the University of Denver and felt something click. I changed my major that day, and later graduated with degrees in both Theatre and Business.
While I was in school at DU, I auditioned for film, TV, theatre, and videogames, and had the absolute joy of working with wonderful organizations like Curious Theatre Company and Deck Nine Games, who each trusted me with my first professional credits in theatre (as River in “Appropriate”) and videogames (as Chloe Price in “Life is Strange: Before the Storm”), respectively.

Then, in 2019, I graduated and worked full time as an actor until…well, we all know what happened in the spring of 2020. With more time on my hands, I wanted to delve more deeply into other passions that had been calling on me from the background – specifically, directing and producing. It was during COVID that I produced a feature film, as well as other smaller independent projects, and received mentorship in directing from the formidable Ina Marlowe, who had been my professor in the advanced acting class at DU.

Throughout COVID, my love for directing really flowered into being. Ina generously provided her mentorship and guidance during those years, as she challenged and schooled me on the awesome responsibilities of being a director. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to delve into directing; directing deepened my relationship to acting as a craft, and vis-versa, and studying directing opened doors for me, artistically, that I don’t know if I would have been able to access otherwise.
I began directing and assistant directing on staged readings, and then directed my first full production with Bailey Theatre Company, a show called “None of the Above” by Jenny Lyn Bader. After being Associate Artistic Director, then Artistic Director of Bailey Theatre Company, and directing/assistant directing a handful of productions and staged readings, another opportunity came into being: founding a new theatre company with Ina Marlowe and Tess Neel. The radiant and tenacious Tess, who I met during our very first week at DU, was the only other student majoring in both Theatre and Business, and we clicked immediately. Together, we founded Denver Theatre Ensemble: a theatre with a mission to reinvent tradition. The three of us – Ina, Tess, and I – are a team that I am so incredibly proud and grateful to be a part of, and I’m beyond excited to see how our theatre company and its artistry will grow.

And that’s where you find me now: working as an actor in theatre, videogames, and film, Artistic Director of Denver Theatre Ensemble, and simply loving being enveloped by art. As an artist, there’s no place I’d rather be.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t think the road to being/becoming/accepting that you are an artist is ever a smooth one, and that’s sort of part of the delight (and pain) of the journey. I consider myself particularly lucky, though. I’ve had some really incredible teachers and collaborators throughout my life who have challenged and inspired me to rise to what they believe I can be–and, consequentially, have emboldened me to believe in myself along the way.

And I think that the struggles I’ve faced in being an artist are not unlike those of others who share my passion for art: the battle against self-doubt, a lack of trust for the self and others, a longing for community, an overwhelming love for humanity that exists at odds with the rage or disappointment we might have for how people treat one another. But what’s fantastic about art is that, as much as it pushes us to confront the flaws and failures and difficulties of living, it also gives us the solution for all of these things. Because, through art, –through curiosity, generosity of spirit, creativity, and the resilience of humanity– we can, at the least, explore and engage with the world’s problems, or, at the most (!), solve them.

So, even though being an artist comes with bumps and cracks in the road, the art itself gives us the ability to smooth the path and continue on. At least, that is how it has been for me: pursuing and studying art has been a difficult path, but I can always count on the art to comfort and guide me through.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a multi-medium actor, theatre director, and film and theatre producer, as well as Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Denver Theatre Ensemble.

Overall, if I had to choose one thing to be most proud of, I’d say: I’m proud that I stayed the course. I’m proud that, even when life as an artist felt too difficult or overwhelming, I hung on. I’m very grateful to my younger self, as well as to my brilliant and caring mentors and collaborators, that I continued creating, cultivating, and investigating my artistry.

My passion for business, creative problem-solving, and strategy is probably what sets me apart from others, if I had to put a finger on it. And I’m grateful for it–my interest in entrepreneurship makes many of the tasks of being a working artist far more manageable. The management, marketing, accounting, and other responsibilities that come with running one’s own business (which every working artist is effectively doing–running their own business) require a lot of time and energy, and I believe it sets me apart that I actually enjoy performing these entrepreneurial efforts almost as much as I enjoy making art. And I think having a love for both business and theatre is a large part of what has brought me to becoming Artistic Director of Denver Theatre Ensemble.

Denver Theatre Ensemble is very near and dear to my heart, and I’m incredibly proud of the company, our artists, and our team. As a theatre company on a mission to reinvent tradition, my vision for the company is to experiment with a different variable in the artistic process with every season. For instance, for our 2025 Season, the theme of the season was to experiment with the length of the rehearsal and/or artistic process. We began the year with “The Vanya Project”, a reading of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” which rehearsed with the same cast for the better part of a year. Then, we produced “A Doll’s House Part 2” by Lucas Hnath, under the direction of Ina Marlowe, who had worked/fought/experimented with the original “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen for over 30 years. And we closed the season with “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” by Nassim Soleimanpour, an ultra-ephemeral production with no rehearsal and no director, where an actor steps onto the stage and performs for the very first time from a script they’ve never seen or read before. It was vital that these shows not only served our experimentation of the artistic process, but also honored the cultural commentary and questions that theatre could be exploring at present, and I’m so proud of what we have achieved this year.

Denver Theatre Ensemble is a process-based, artist-centered theatre company that platforms the opportunity to explore and experiment with the artistic process, and we can’t wait to continue pushing the bounds of discovery in future seasons. You can keep up with us on Instagram at @denver.theatre.ensemble if you’d like 😉

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Show up as yourself, and work very, very hard. Be kind, be grateful, be brave. Be generous in spirit, in energy, in forgiveness. Understand that you, and you alone, bring a unique and necessary perspective to the passion that you are called to. Believe in something bigger than yourself; for me, my belief in the power of theatre and my passion for the artistic process has enabled me to find my dearest mentors and collaborators. If you are truthful in your “why”, then you will attract the people that share your passion and purpose who can help you along your way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.RhiannaDeVries.com
• Instagram: @rhianna.devries
• Other: https://www.dtensemble.com

Image Credits
RDG Photo, Aaron Archuleta