Since 1995, he is a member of the core acting company at American Players Theatre, a classical amphitheater located in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
[1] His one-person show In Acting Shakespeare chronicles his journey from working on fishing boats to becoming an actor and director of classical theater.
[2] The play is a personalized adaption of Ian McKellen's Acting Shakespeare, which inspired DeVita to become an actor when he saw it in 1983.
[3] DeVita has spent the bulk of his long acting career at American Players Theatre, playing among other Shakespeare roles Hamlet, Romeo, Iago, Macbeth, Leontes, Richard III, Richard II.
In 2015, Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout wrote that "America has no finer classical actor than Jim DeVita.