Local Actress Appears in Feature Film

Devorah Richards never meant to take a break from acting. The Highland Park resident came to Chicago to perform on the stage, but soon gave into the temptations of a full-time job.

"That life just sucks you in," said Richards, who appears in the feature film D.I.N.K.s., which premieres Friday in Chicago. "It's very seductive -- the bills get paid, you get the new car; the more you have, the more you have to work to support it."

Richards became the vice president of a trade show company, got married and started raising a family. Once her two children, who are 14 and 8, started school, Richards decided it was the time to jump back into acting.

"I thought, 'Gee, I have a little time on my hands, maybe I would take an acting class again," she said. "In between family responsibilities, you try to smush these things in a little bit."

That was six years ago. Since then, Richards has been an understudy at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and has appeared on the Discovery Channel. Though D.I.N.K.s isn't her first feature-length film, Richards insists she's still a novice when it comes to television and film work.

"All that kind of stuff is still pretty new to me."

D.I.N.K.s, an acronym for Double Income, No Kids, is a comedy that tells the story of a young couple that choose not to have children in a suburb where such a decision is frowned upon. 

"I am a D.I.N.K., and my wife and I have had to endure a lot," the film's director Robert Alaniz  in an interview with Lemont Patch. "There were a lot of important issues I wanted to get into the story, but I wanted to have fun with them."

The young couple start a movement to stand up to the disobedient children terrorizing other D.I.N.K.s in coffee shops and supermarkets throughout the fictional town. Richards plays the mayor's wife in the movie, which is the director's fifth. She's hoping the film will find a distributor so it can get a wider release.

"Anyone can make a film," Richards said. "It's getting them distributed that's really a challenge."

In the meantime, Richards will continue her pursuit of other acting opportunities. She's currently an ensemble member with Chicago's Polarity Ensemble Theatre, and will direct a staged reading in May for the Theatre's annual new plays festival.

And while she admits she's still learning to be a movie star, Richards said that at Friday's premiere she'll get the red carpet treatment. The movie's cast will arrive in limos, and will be interviewed by other actors from the cast pretending to be reporters.

D.I.N.K.s screens on Friday at Portage Theater in Chicago. For more information, click here.