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Dovalina's plays have been seen in five states. He is best known for having written the book for the musical "The Gospel According to Tammy Faye." 

His collection of short plays about Mexican-American life in the U.S., "Meskins/Cycle of Life, Love and Death" won second place in the national Nuestras Voces playwriting competition and was given a reading in a midtown New York theater. 

His Iraq War drama, "American Homefront" was produced in Houston. The Columbia Gorge Theater gave it a reading in a Broadway-area theater space.

His surreal drama "Comfort of Anger" was staged at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. 

About 40 of his plays have been seen by Houston audiences, produced by Cone Man Running Productions, Unhinged Productions, Scriptwriters/Houston and other Houston companies.

He also created the Driscoll Street Salon Theatre, which stages readings of his own plays and those of his fellow Houston playwrights at his home.

Although Dovalina spent most of his 37-year career in newspapers as an editor and newsroom supervisor, he began his career as a reporter and continued writing while he was an editor. 

He was a police and general assignments reporter for the Beaumont Enterprise and wrote a record review column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. At the Houston Chronicle, his feature story, "Dad Was a Baseball Player" won a United Press International regional first place in feature writing. 

He was a pioneer among Mexican-American journalists in Texas, becoming the first racial minority to write for the Beaumont paper, the first racial minority to be an editor and have a regularly appearing column at the Star-Telegram and the first racial minority to be an editor and become a newsroom supervisor at the Houston Chronicle, where he was an assistant managing editor in charge of the news and international desks. 

Some of the stories he wrote for the Chronicle were picked up by other newspapers throughout the country.