Arts & Pride Month conversation series: James Dover
Originally published on The JOLT News on June 18, 2026
Last month, I had the opportunity to see Olympia Family Theater’s “The Hobbit,” co-directed by James Dover, who had a “joyful and fun energy in his preshow opening” as I noted in my performance review. After seeing Dover on stage, I just knew I needed to meet him and (hopefully) become his friend.
Heavily involved in Olympia’s theater scene, Dover is a director, set designer, and prop and puppet creator. When not in the theater space, Dover and his partner enjoy exploring and experimenting with various crafts and art forms like beading.
I found Dover to be a warm, loving, creative and a very down to earth person! I hope you all enjoy our conversation as much as I did!
The conversation
Benton: Tell me about the arts role in your story as someone from the LGBTQ+ community.
Dover:"My queerness has affected my artistic style, and I have been building upon myself. I am a trans man, but most of my experience growing up was knowing I was queer since I was very young and always walking through life with an attraction to women.
"Growing up as a theater artist, this part of my identity was just something that was always there with me. It was never something that really affected one another until I got to come into my body a little bit more.
"One of my favorite quotes is, 'Theater is empathy exercised,' and it's true because you are literally stepping into somebody else’s shoes and exercising that muscle inside you. Living as a woman for about 20 years of my life, and then living as a man, I feel like I’ve seen more spectrums of the human experience and it has made me a more empathetic and well rounded artist.
"I feel like because I have done a really hard and challenging thing, I am less scared to take risks because my existence is kind of a risk. My existence as a trans person proves that existence is limitless, and I try to carry that in my artistic practice. I ask questions like 'Why can’t that happen?' 'How else can we look at this?' 'What can I build or create?' 'How can we make it work?'"
Dover: "I debate all the time whether or not I tell people I am trans."
Benton: Would you like this on or off the record?
Dover: "I think it has to be on the record, that is kind of the whole thing. I try to keep myself safe where I can. In a lot of spaces, I don’t mention it.
"In theatrical spaces, I was trying to hide it for a hot second. Then in a production I was directing, I connected with an actor privately about being trans because they just realized that about themselves. I was able to help them and tell them, 'Hey, this is the deal.' They ended up coming to me throughout their process for advice and asking for help with things like the fit of clothing and stuff like that.
"Being a director, it is integral to be your fullest self so the people you work with can be their fullest self. There is a myriad of experiences out there and there are a million different ways to connect with people if you allow yourself to."
Benton: Have you encountered discrimination in the professional arts communities you have been a part of?
Dover: "I have definitely encountered folks along the way who are maybe less agreeable or sociable than they would be with somebody else. Like I’m not always given the same number of opportunities as other people. It’s never direct, but sometimes you can just feel when somebody is just treating you a little differently."
Benton: If you had a megaphone, where you could share a message about pride and artistry with everybody, what would you say?
Dover: "Community is everything — it is existence, it is joy, it is resistance. One of my favorite quotes is, 'A world without trans people has never existed and it never will.' We can’t be a community without everybody."
Benton: Is there something that myself and other allies can do to extend our support?
Dover: "Go out and view more art, more queer art, and have more respectful conversations with trans and queer people — I think sometimes, it feels like people don’t know how to talk to me (if they know this about me). The more you envelope yourself in not just queer culture, but in any and every sort of culture and experience that can occur in this world, the more communicative, empathetic, authentic a person can be rather than trying to just stick to one kind of way of thinking."
https://thejoltnews.com/stories/hold-arts-pride-month-conversation-series-james-dover,29508