To hear Na’Tosha De’Von tell it, theatre and poetry were God’s plans for her life, but that doesn’t mean she agreed with him at first or that she followed suit — at least without a few arguments.

De’Von was a young woman in college intent on becoming a lawyer when she started feeling the nudge toward the arts. It certainly didn’t come from within, she claims. As a girl who grew up in small town Mississippi, she hadn’t known that making a living that way was even a possibility to consider.

“No one thinks about being an actor” there, De’Von said. “You think about ‘What am I eating tonight?’ those little things. When God showed me acting and poetry, (I said) ‘How do you … What?! Choose something else!’ We went back and forth.”

She’s long past that phase of questioning in her life, but it seems He knew she had natural ability for this work from the start. Since dropping the arguments and becoming an actor, poet and activist, De’Von has written two books, the first titled “Ain’t I A Woman,” after her one-woman show of the same name. The book has resources for abuse hotlines and a mental health guideline designed as a follow up to anyone who had something triggered in the course of watching the play. “Quiet As It’s Kept,” her second book, is what one of her friends aptly described as the Southern Black girl’s Bible.

De’Von is currently working on a third book in her position of artist in residence at the Momentary contemporary art space in Bentonville. The second half of the residency will take her to France next spring, where she will spend three weeks working in Chateau Orquevaux, an international artists and writers residence set in a castle.

Audiences have come to recognize her from her many roles on stage at TheatreSquared, where she is also a teaching artist, and on screen primarily through Dayvision, a film production company in Fayetteville that “gives power and resources to Black creatives and their stories.”

De’Von made her directorial debut last year during a Trike Theatre production of “The Jungle Book” at the Walton Arts Center and has directed a number of plays since. Branching off to another new skillset is unsurprising to those who know her best.

“She cannot be pigeonholed,” said Steven Marzolf, assistant professor of theater and head of undergraduate performance at the University of Arkansas. Marzolf was De’Von’s professor and mentor. He’s now also a colleague, having been cast as a narrator in one of her recent productions.

“I consider her a theater artist, which is one of the highest compliments for someone in our profession,” he said. “Na’Tosha’s not just one thing. She’s many different things and brings artistry to production.”

De’Von’s most recent production as a director, and her first musical, was “Beauty and the Beast” by Arts One Presents. Fifty-three people auditioned for parts. Her reputation for creating safe spaces in theatre had gotten out and people wanted to be a part of it.

“The level of care that she handles every person in the room with is impressive and admirable,” said Emily Tomlinson, a fellow actor and “big fan” of Na’Tosha’s. “She has a clarity of purpose, that every voice is valued and that they are doing equally important things.”

Ultimately she cast 48 people and broke a number of records for the arts company, including largest audience turnout for a community production — the majority of which had never attended an AOP show before.

WHAT IS REBIRTH

This summer, Na’Tosha De’Von’s mother died after a battle with Alzheimer’s. The inspiration for her new book came from the grieving process.

De’Von had secured the placement in the artist residency before her mother died. She didn’t quite know what she was going to create, she just knew there would be something. The result is becoming a visual poetry self help book that she’s developing alongside a line of candles called “Metaphoric Sense.”

“It’s a two-way book on ‘How do we deal with grief?’ and ‘What is the journey to, not getting back to ourselves because that version of us is dead, but ‘What is rebirth?’” she said.

Poetry has been her safe space, a place to slow down and be honest with herself. It’s not surprising that her writing seeks to open conversation and healthy debate. Whenever she gets reader feedback, it’s typically connected to a specific poem that has made the reader consider themselves and the self work they have to do, which is exactly what De’Von hopes they’ll get out of it.

“People are used to seeing the light and growth of a person, but we have bad thoughts sometimes,” De’Von said. Sharing her own inner thoughts can sometimes be a nerve wracking business, but she’s grown accustomed to it. The idea is not to be free of fear, but to be real and vulnerable. You might wonder if you “will be seen as a mentor, a community person … but the goal is to be human. Are you human, are you real, are you relatable?”

While seeing her mother’s decline, Na’Tosha said the grieving process began while she was still alive.

Throughout the course of watching her illness, she used poetry as acceptance. She realized that anger wouldn’t bring her mom’s memory back and that they could still make new memories in the final weeks and days, rather than making each interaction about a diagnosis.

De’Von went home for Christmas, the holiday that her mother had always done big and extra special. At the time, her mother could still talk and recognize her and her sisters. They took her on a drive around the neighborhood to take in some holiday lights.

“She was watching them as if for the first time,” De’Von said. Suddenly she realized that life had come full circle in a way she had never experienced. “That moment was so beautiful because … she was so innocent. I thought ‘She needs me right now in the way I needed her as a child.’”

It reframed the way she looked at her mother, how she treated her and talked about the illness. After she returned from that trip, she wrote the poem “Things I Learned From My Mother’s Alzheimer’s.”

De’Von returned to rehearsals of Beauty and the Beast just a few days after her mother’s death, but said it was good for her spirit to be back to the stage.

“The resilience impresses me the most about her,” said Mike Day of Dayvision Films. “The resilience that she has put into everything she’s invested in, whether ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ working for Dayvision or TheatreSquared or Arts Live, she has found a way to grieve, yet still enhance and improve her work and that’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen involving her so far.”

MORE SOUTHERN THAN CITY

De’Von and her sisters were born in Chicago, but following their parents’ divorce when she was in the fourth grade, the family moved to Mississippi, where she would be raised.

“I gravitate to the kindness and hospitality of southern culture,” De’Von said. But that wasn’t always the case. At first, when strangers would say hello, she was suspicious.

Her family lived down a dirt road and after hearing one too many claims of “I’m bored,” her sister implored her to read a book.

“I started reading and writing poetry once we moved to Mississippi because it was boring, in the South in the sticks,” she said.

What might have been self serving in the moment turned into a long-term, genuine encouragement from her and the boy her sister would marry. The two of them were 10 and 15 years her senior, old enough to be influential in a similar way to parents, aunts or uncles. They brought Na’Tosha things to read and would in turn read any short stories and poems she wrote.

“They encouraged me to read a lot, to write and if I was interested in something, they were very supportive,” she said. Her brother-in-law, who later died in 2021, was her very first fan. The pair would eventually move Na’Tosha to Northwest Arkansas.

It was back then that her powers of imagination began to take root.

If someone were to open young Na’Tosha’s bedroom door, or magically be able to see inside, it might have looked like she was sitting for hours in silence. But what she was really doing was crafting stories, taking trips in her mind.

“I would go on a journey, like ‘We’re sitting in a cafeteria and I have this outfit on,’ my mind is traveling and I would write this down,” De’Von said. To this day, she still does this whenever she can’t sleep. Then later, if she gets stuck on a writing project, she pulls out her voice memos to herself that were collected over a variety of those moments.

School was also an important part of her life growing up.

She earned an associate’s degree in pre-law. But before she moved on, her mother and sister needed surgeries and De’Von was needed at home.

What started as a semester off turned into two years out of school. Then God’s message about theater and poetry started getting louder and more clear. She returned, this time to Jackson State University.

“I went and changed my major to broadcast journalism, I was bargaining with God,” De’Von said. In order to major in broadcast journalism, she needed a minor. Theatre was conveniently in the same building, so theatre it was.

A requirement of being a theatre minor was that she had to audition for on-stage roles. She landed three — the most any of the girls in the department got — in “The Good Doctor,” a comedic short stories by Anton Chekhov with music written by Neil Simon. It astounded her, since she had next to no theatre experience.

The only play she’d been to that point was an elementary production, in which she was cast as “Girl with phone,” whose job was to roll her head around with sass.

“The professors were sweet,” she said. When they found out she hadn’t had any training, and hadn’t touched a script until then, age 23 or 24, they applauded her natural ability. They told her “‘This is not just some pastime thing, this could be your life.’”

In the moment of taking on a brand new study and the on-stage roles, De’Von thought that once the play was over she’d probably change her major and never do it again. But she stuck with it.

Though she came to theatre late compared to those around her, a lot of the things she didn’t know she still had time to catch up on.De’Von formally requested a semester off of auditioning so she could take time to learn the building blocks. And then?

“Then I worked so freaking hard,” she said. “I felt like I was playing catch up.”

MOLDING A CREATIVE BRAIN

While still an undergrad, Na’Tosha De’Von had the opportunity to play Ruth in a production of “A Raisin in the Sun.” She learned a lot under the direction of Mark Henderson there, while she was still new. It surprised her to learn she wasn’t the one on stage that he was worried about.

“That made me understand and teach myself a bit more,” she said. “Not how to take over a scene, but to aid and pick up what is lacking around you and throw your energy to other characters. That has been the thing that makes my acting vulnerable and honest.”

De’Von pulled lessons from a variety of places, experiences and sources, including reading “For Colored Girls,” by Ntozake Shange, which taught her to tap into the authenticity of her own voice rather than mimicking someone else’s.

Yohance Myles, a theatre professor at Jackson State, was among the first to take Na’Tosha under his wing and invest in her career. As her mentor, he intended to push her farther than he could ever go.

“That was such a selfless approach and I learned so many life lessons about the business of theatre from him,” she said.

Later other people would place faith in her, like Jason Burrows, who reinforced for her the idea that Na’Tosha should be exactly herself and not work to fit into a mold. Amy Herzberg, associate artistic director at TheatreSquared who directs MFA and BA acting programs at UA, invested in Na’Tosha before even meeting her.

When it came time to choose a graduate school, De’Von was torn. She had gotten into five or six schools and narrowed it down to three. University of Arkansas was one, but she had her heart set on East 15 Acting School. To study theatre in London seemed like a dream.

Then as deadlines loomed near, Na’Tosha began to feel paralyzed by the decision. One of her professors, who had studied at the UA, picked up on that. He urged her to respond to Herzberg, who had not been subtle in her pursuit of De’Von. He didn’t want a good opportunity to pass her up.

“I ran from it, when I felt like I was not ready for grad school,” she said.

When the professor checked in with her about the process, De’Von lied and said she had submitted the paperwork. He called her bluff and urged her to do it before she left the classroom. She called the other schools to decline and formally accepted UA.

Looking back, it’s easier now to see that she was feeling nervous about being away from her family and sisters for the very first time. Between her professor’s connection here and Herzberg’s genuine interest in her, the prospects looked good and she arrived to Northwest Arkansas.

THE MAKING OF A DIRECTOR

There were signs of what kind of director De’Von could be long before she had the chance to direct anything. When De’Von and Emily Tomlinson were cast in the production of “As You Like It” together, they had never met prior to auditions but were charged with building a relationship strong enough to be “convincingly close on stage,” as characters that are best friends.

“She was instantly warm, one of the most generous people I’ve been privileged to spend time with,” Tomlinson said. “She was so excited to learn from every person in the room and give 112%.”

Later, toward the end of De’Von’s MFA experience, she played Lady Macbeth. Steven Marzolf was directing her at the time, and eventually Na’Tosha realized that she didn’t agree with his assessment of the character. She felt strongly that it was a bit off and not reflective of Lady Macbeth, so she made her case respectfully.

“That show … was a pivot point for her in her artistry and as an actor,” Marzolf said. She was not feeling it as an actor, told him truthfully what she felt and offered an alternative. “It shifted my perspective on that character.”

Ultimately, the production was successful and it earned a lot of critical praise from those who saw it. More importantly, it brought something out in De’Von.

“It was one of the first times she allowed her voice to come out and say ‘This is really important to me,’” Marzolf said. “It’s very brave … to have the chutzpah to say ‘This is important and this is not working.’”

Since then De’Von has gained more confidence in that voice, using it in her work as an activist. Whether speaking up during troubled times, such as in 2020 in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, or supporting the potential for a first Black female president, she activates on the right side of history, said Mike Day.

“Dayvision, my company, has prospered because of her presence as one of the best actors I’ve come across, and a great writer, director and mentor,” he said. “Having Na’Tosha on your team is one benefit, but having her as a friend and sister is a whole other blessing.”