Director's Bio
Grace Walcott (she/her, he/him), also known as Gracie X, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #156723, drama therapist, filmmaker, actor, and author whose work explores identity, self-acceptance, sexuality, gender, trauma, and belonging. A graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Drama Therapy program, Grace brings creative, embodied, and relational approaches to her clinical work with individuals and groups in Oakland and throughout the Bay Area. Her work is grounded in play, imagination, curiosity, and reclaiming the authorship of one’s story. Grace is the director of River of Life, LGBTQ+, a multigenerational documentary that brings elders and younger LGBTQ+ people together using drama therapy to explore identity, internalized oppression, intergenerational conflict, and queer belonging.
Grace’s own experience with identity and community belonging informs her commitment to creating spaces where people can play and express their most authentic selves. She identifies as pansexual and describes herself as gender-expansive, identifying as both male and female. Her work invites LGBTQ+ folks, individuals, and communities experiencing oppression to make room for complexity, evolution, and difference.
She is also the author of Wide Open: My Adventures in Polyamory, Open Marriage and Loving on My Own Terms.
As an actor and writer, she has performed in and created work for theater, film, television, and community-based venues. Her film Ginger Snaps screened at the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Outfest, the Berlin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and on PBS.
Through drama therapy, filmmaking, and storytelling, Grace works toward a world in which people can be their fullest authentic selves—and where communities learn to transform difference from a source of division into a source of strength.
