Bekah Brunstetter

Last updated

Bekah Brunstetter
Bekah Brunstetter at 18th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival in 2015.jpg
Brunstetter at the 2015 Pacific Playwrights Festival
BornRebecca Leah Brunstetter
(1982-06-13) June 13, 1982 (age 42)
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.
OccupationWriter, producer
Education
Relatives Peter S. Brunstetter (father)
Website
blog.bekahbrunstetter.com

Rebecca Leah"Bekah"Brunstetter (born June 13, 1982) is an American writer. Her published plays include F*cking Art, which won top honors at the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival, I Used to Write on Walls, Oohrah!, Be a Good Little Widow, Going to a Place Where You Already Are, and The Cake, a play inspired by events leading to the US Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission . She is a founding member of The Kilroys, which annually produces The Kilroys' List. Her television work includes writing for I Just Want My Pants Back , Underemployed , Switched at Birth , and American Gods , and both writing and producing on This Is Us .

Contents

Early life and education

Rebecca Leah Brunstetter was born on June 13, 1982, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. [1] [2] She is the daughter of former North Carolina Senator Peter S. Brunstetter [3] and Jodie Brunstetter. [4] She was raised as the only daughter among three brothers in a conservative Christian home. Brunstetter wrote poems and short stories from a young age, and became involved with theater after moving from a private Christian middle school to Mount Tabor High School, a public school. [5] [6]

As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brunstetter initially pursued creative writing through poetry, but feedback from her creative writing professors convinced her to try playwriting. [2] She wrote her first play as a first-year student and decided to pursue playwriting as a career. [7] By the time Brunstetter graduated from UNC in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, the UNC Theater Department had fully staged several of her plays. She continued to study playwriting for three years in the School of Drama at The New School, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree. [2] [8]

Career

Early plays

After graduating with her MFA, Brunstetter worked at a corporate job while continuing to write plays. [2] I Used to Write on Walls, her play about three women who fall for a religious man who surfs and draws graffiti, premiered at the Gene Frankel Theatre Underground in New York in 2007, with Gwen Orel of Backstage calling it a "would-be feminist fable" that is "less convincing than cute". [9] Duncan Pflaster of BroadwayWorld observed that the play seemed to "reinforce the stereotype that women need men to feel complete", but praised Brunstetter's writing and character development. [10] Robert Hurwitt's review in the San Francisco Chronicle of the play's 2010 West Coast premiere also praised the quality of the dialogue, but called the lengthy play "a bit too much of one initially good thing". [11]

In 2008, her play F*cking Art, about a cheerleader who visits her cancer-stricken classmate, was a winner at the 33rd Annual Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival, and was subsequently published by Samuel French. [12] The following year she was named Playwright in Residence at Ars Nova, and her play Oohrah!, a story about the family lives of people in a North Carolina town changing as veterans return home from Iraq, premiered off-Broadway at Stage 2 of the Atlantic Theater Company. [8] In his review of Oohrah!, Charles Isherwood of The New York Times praised Brunstetter as an up-and-coming new playwright, but found the play "generally unconvincing". [13] Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News assessed Oohrah! as "about as deep as your average sitcom", while drawing attention to the quality of Brunstetter's dialogue and writing of female characters. [14]

Brunstetter's play Miss Lilly Gets Boned, a story about a religious woman whose disappointment in love causes her to plot revenge against a South African man who lost his wife in an elephant attack, premiered in 2010 at the Finborough Theatre. Writing for The Guardian , Michael Billington found the development of the main character to be unconvincing, but noted the high quality of the production and acting. [15] In 2019, Rogue Machine Theatre produced the play's West Coast premiere in Los Angeles. [16] Jeffrey Scott's BroadwayWorld review of the Los Angeles production praised the play, actors, and production quality, particularly the performance of Larisa Oleynik in the lead role, but also suggested that the story could be split into three one-act plays in future productions. [17]

During her Ars Nova residency Brunstetter wrote a new play, titled Be a Good Little Widow, about the relationship between a woman and her husband's mother before and after the husband's death. [18] Be a Good Little Widow premiered at Ars Nova in 2011, with a cast including Jill Eikenberry and Wrenn Schmidt. [19] Writing for The New York Times, Adam Hetrick reviewed the play positively, praising Brunstetter for writing straightforward dialogue and genuinely emotional characters. [18] A review by Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune was less favorable to a 2011 Collaboraction staging of the play, calling Be a Good Little Widow "sincerely meant but structurally immature". [20] Kathleen Foley later reviewed the Los Angeles premiere positively in the Los Angeles Times , observing that Brunstetter was adept at manipulating the audience's emotions to good effect. [21]

Expanding into screenwriting

While working as a playwright, Brunstetter started a business writing audition monologues for actors and looked for other writing work to supplement her playwriting income. [22] Her theater agent introduced her to a television agent in Los Angeles, and she was hired as a writer's assistant by MTV. [23] After spending a season as an assistant on the short-lived MTV show I Just Want My Pants Back , she became a member of the writing staff for another MTV show, Underemployed , before moving to the ABC Family drama Switched at Birth , where she worked as a staff writer for three seasons. [24]

Brunstetter continued her playwriting while working as a screenwriter, premiering her work Forgotten Corners of Your Dark, Dark Place, which starred actresses in wheelchairs, at the Theater Breaking Through Barriers' annual festival of new plays. [25] Anita Gates of The New York Times praised the actresses' performances, but expressed concern that the play was unclear about whether or not it was mocking feminist self-examination groups. [26] Brunstetter also collaborated with other Los Angeles-area writers to create The Kilroys' List, an annual list of plays by female and transgender playwrights modeled on the Black List but intended to promote gender equity. [27] [28] The list featured her own play The Oregon Trail, about a girl who withdraws from social life as she plays the video game The Oregon Trail . The play subsequently premiered at the Women's Voices Theater Festival, with Nelson Pressley of The Washington Post concluding that "even some over-explaining in the final steps doesn’t erase the pleasure of this quest". [29]

The Cake and American Gods

In 2015, Brunstetter began writing The Cake, a play about a baker who is asked to bake a cake for the wedding of her best friend's daughter but refuses because it is a same-sex wedding. [30] The play was inspired by real-life events that eventually led to the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission Supreme Court case, and by her father's opposition to same-sex marriage, a view with which she disagrees. [3] [31] The play premiered in Los Angeles, with Debra Jo Rupp in the starring role. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Philip Brandes praised the play's narrative structure but noted that some of the dialogue "reads like a laundry list of liberal activist accusations". [32] The play has been widely produced, including shows at the La Jolla Playhouse, [33] Houston's Alley Theatre, [34] and an Off-Broadway premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center that Jesse Green of The New York Times described as "well-baked but not quite filling". [35]

At the same time that she was writing The Cake, Brunstetter started work on the new Starz series American Gods , based on Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. [24] As part of the writing team for American Gods, Brunstetter helped develop the character of the goddess Easter. [31] She was credited as a writer on the first-season finale, titled "Come to Jesus", which Oliver Sava singled out in Vulture as an exciting standout in an otherwise poorly-paced season. [36]

This Is Us

Brunstetter also joined the NBC series This Is Us , first as a staff writer, then story editor, before becoming a supervising producer. [37] She was nominated along with fellow producers for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2017, 2018, and 2019. [38] [39] [40] Her personal childhood bullying experience inspired a "heartbreaking" scene in This Is Us in which an overweight young girl is excluded from playing with the other girls. [30] The show debuted in 2016, and received the highest ratings among new shows on American broadcast television in its first season. [41] Brunstetter left the show after three seasons. [42]

Going to a Place Where You Already Are and later work

In 2016, South Coast Repertory premiered Going to a Place Where You Already Are, a play the company commissioned from Brunstetter. The play follows a terminally ill woman who comes to believe in heaven, leading her to abandon further medical treatment against the wishes of her spouse, who does not believe in an afterlife. [43] It is based in part on conversations Brunstetter had with her father's atheist parents about death and heaven. [44] In the Los Angeles Times, Daryl Miller called Going to a Place Where You Already Are a "terrific new play", highlighting her simultaneously emotional and entertaining treatment of serious subjects. [45] The play was also produced by the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, where it was panned by Juliet Wittman in Westword as a saccharine remix of elements from This Is Us, [46] and at Theater Alliance of Washington, DC, where John Stoltenberg of DC Metro Theater Arts called it "an extraordinary exploration of love in life and loss in death". [43]

Brunstetter was one of several writers to receive an inaugural $5,000 Writers Alliance Grant from the Dramatists Guild Foundation in 2018, with Brunstetter's grant supporting a new commission from Theater Breaking Through Barriers. [47] The resulting play, about a woman who borrows money from her politically conservative father under false pretenses to pay for an abortion, premiered the following year at Clurman Theatre in the Theatre Row Building under the title Public Servant. [48] In The New York Times, Laura Collins-Hughes criticized Public Servant for its character and plot development, observing that the play's story seemed "grafted to fit" its politics. [49] While lauding the inclusive casting of Public Servant, Deb Miller of DC Metro Theater Arts expressed disapproval of Brunstetter's "signature TV style", noting particularly her handling of the play's various dilemmas with "forced, overly sentimental, and unbelievably contrived" resolutions. [48]

Collaborations

Brunstetter was hired in 2017 to adapt the bestselling self-help book The Secret for film. [50] Her script adapts the book's ideas about the "law of attraction" into a story about the relationship between a widowed mother and a handyman who shares his thoughts on how the universe works. [51] In 2019, singer Ingrid Michaelson announced that she and Brunstetter had been collaborating on an adaptation of The Notebook into a Broadway musical, with author Nicholas Sparks later confirming his involvement in the production. [52]

With screenwriter Cinco Paul providing the songs, Brunstetter wrote the script for a musical comedy titled A.D. 16, about "a teenage Mary Magdalene in love with Jesus", that premiered in February 2022 at the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland. [53] Peter Marks of The Washington Post praised the integration of modern music and themes with the Biblical setting, as well as the design and production of the show, concluding that A.D. 16 was "an occasion that merits its own hallelujah chorus". [54] John Stoltenberg of DC Theater Arts also praised the musical, noting the effective movement between comedy and moral seriousness, and in particular the comedic portrayal of Jesus as a counterpoint to evangelical Christian ideas about masculinity. [55] Rebecca Ritzel of Washington City Paper criticized the connection between the story and the music, saying that "the plot stops when the music starts", but favorably noted that both Paul and Brunstetter had drawn on their personal religious backgrounds to craft a "more subtle, and more empathetic" musical than similarly irreverent works like Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar . [56]

Personal life

Brunstetter married actor Morrison Keddie in 2016. [31] In 2017, as a Valentine's Day present, Brunstetter wrote a short film script for Keddie based on a story about his uncle. [57] The resulting film, titled Again, with Keddie portraying the lead role of a man who repeatedly watches the film Groundhog Day , was selected for the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. [58] [59] Keddie has since provided the voice of George in the Barrington Stage Company production of The Cake. [60] As of 2017, Brunstetter resides in Los Angeles, California. [61]

Works

Related Research Articles

Joanna Gleason is a Canadian-American actress and singer. She is a Tony Award–winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles. She is known for originating the role of the Baker's Wife in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She is also known for her film work in Mike Nichols' Heartburn (1986), Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997). She has had television roles in shows such as ER, Friends, The West Wing, The Good Wife and The Affair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Ruhl</span> American writer

Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manhattan Theatre Club</span> Theatre company in New York City

Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) is a theatre company located in New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Director Chris Jennings, along with Executive Producer Emeritus Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1972 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country's most acclaimed theatre organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Howe</span> American playwright (1937–2023)

Mabel Davis "Tina" Howe was an American playwright. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Howe's best-known works include Museum, The Art of Dining, Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances, and Pride's Crossing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Gummer</span> American actress (born 1983)

Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer is an American actress. She starred in the title role of The CW series Emily Owens, M.D. (2012–2013), and played the recurring role of Nancy Crozier on The Good Wife (2010–2015) and its spin-off, The Good Fight (2018). She has also appeared in the films Evening (2007), Side Effects (2013), Cake (2014), and Ricki and the Flash (2015). Gummer was nominated for the 2016 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for the original production of Ugly Lies the Bone. She is the daughter of Don Gummer and Meryl Streep.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Working Man's Clothes</span>

Working Man's Clothes Productions is a New York City theater company that was founded in January 2005. It is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas. It has won a number of awards including IT-Awards. The company name was taken from a line of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Common sense is genius dressed in working man's clothes." The company focuses on new works by emerging playwrights. The company has produced at such venues as 59East59, Under St. Mark's, Gene Frankel Theatre, and The Ohio Theatre in SoHo. The company is a member of OOBCOM, a community of Off-Off Broadway Theatre Artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Mathias</span> British actor

Sean Gerard Mathias is a Welsh actor, director, and writer. He is known for directing the film Bent and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York City, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Pippin Parker is an American playwright and theatre director. He is Dean of The New School for Drama.

Hal Corley is an American television writer and playwright. He was associate head writer for All My Children and As The World Turns, for which he won five Daytime Emmy Awards and two Writers Guild of America Awards. His plays have been developed with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Walnut Street Theatre, Premiere Stages, Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, New York's Westbeth, San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center, Adirondack Theatre Festival, Washington DC's Source, Stageworks/Hudson, Los Angeles' New American Theatre, and Ontario's Flush Ink. Three full-length scripts, Easter Monday, Mama and Jack Carew, and ODD, are published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals. His Fanny Otcott, an adaptation of a sketch by Thornton Wilder, is published by YouthPLAYS; his Treed is in Playscripts' Great Short Plays Volume 10; and his Dolor is included in Applause's Best American Short Plays for 2014-2015. His work is excerpted in Smith & Krause's Best Stage Scenes of 2008 and Best Men's/Women's Stage Scenes and Monologues of 2011, 222 More Comedy Monologues (2017), and in Samuel French's Exceptional Monologues 2. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America, East.

Halley Feiffer is an American actress, playwright and television writer, known for her award-winning plays I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, and for showrunning and writing the entire season of American Horror Story: Delicate starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.

Bathsheba Sarah Lee "Bash" Doran is a British-born playwright and TV scriptwriter living in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Henry Coffey</span> American actor (b. 1971)

Chris Henry Coffey is an American actor.

Jennifer Haley is an American playwright. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas and studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate degree. Haley also received a MFA in playwriting at Brown University in 2005, where she worked under American playwright and professor, Paula Vogel. Now living in Los Angeles, Haley is pursuing a career in theatre, film and television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genevieve Angelson</span> American TV actress

Genevieve Rose Angelson is an American actress, best known for playing Alanis Wheeler on The Handmaid's Tale, Indigo on The Afterparty, Patti Robinson on Good Girls Revolt, and Ruth on Flack.

Dominique Morisseau is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has written more than nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Project. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leah Nanako Winkler</span> American dramatist

Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-born American playwright currently living in New York City. Her play God Said This won the 2018 Yale Drama Series Prize. Her play, Two Mile Hollow, recently won the Francesca Primus Prize. She is a recipient of a 2020 Steinberg Prize in Distinguished Playwrighting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martyna Majok</span> Polish-American playwright (born 1985)

Martyna Majok is a Polish-born American playwright who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living. She emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in New Jersey. Majok studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and Juilliard School. Her plays are often politically engaged, feature dark humor, and experiment with structure and time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katrina Lenk</span> American actress

Katrina Lenk is an American actress, singer, dancer, musician, and songwriter.

Nell Benjamin is a lyricist, writer, and composer noted for her work in musical theatre. With her husband and frequent collaborator Laurence O'Keefe, she won the Laurence Olivier Award for writing Legally Blonde in 2011. And in 2007, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score for Legally Blonde, and then again in 2018 for her lyrics for Mean Girls.

Adam Gwon is an American composer and lyricist living in New York City.

References

  1. Brunstetter, Bekah (June 13, 2010). "It's My Birthday" . Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Rebecca Leah Brunstetter '04". Carolina Alumni Review. October 12, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  3. 1 2 Menconi, David; Bonner, Lynn (September 14, 2017). "Her legislator father opposed gay marriage. Her complicated feelings inspired a new play". The News & Observer. Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  4. Brunstetter, Bekah (December 24, 2013). "Guest Blogger: Jodie Brunstetter" . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  5. Evans, Suzy (March 2, 2016). "Bekah Brunstetter Wants You to Feel the Joy". American Theatre. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  6. Ducouer, Nicole (February 8, 2017). "Exclusive: Screenwriter from Triad talks NBC's hit show 'This Is Us'". WXII-TV . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  7. Horak, Molly (March 20, 2017). "Q&A with UNC graduate and 'This is Us' writer Bekah Brunstetter". The Daily Tar Heel . Retrieved June 2, 2019.
  8. 1 2 Jones, Kenneth (September 1, 2009). "Oohrah!, Brunstetter's Tale of Military Families, Makes World Premiere in NYC Sept. 1". Playbill. Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  9. Orel, Gwen (October 11, 2007). "I Used to Write on Walls". Backstage . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  10. Pflaster, Duncan (October 8, 2007). "I Used to Write on Walls: The Rippling Mr. Talented". BroadwayWorld . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  11. Hurwitt, Robert (January 16, 2010). "Theater review: 'I Used to Write on Walls'". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  12. Hetrick, Adam (July 22, 2008). "Winners of Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival Announced". Playbill . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  13. Isherwood, Charles (September 10, 2009). "Back From War, Not at Peace". The New York Times . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  14. Dziemianowicz, Joe (September 10, 2009). "Off-Broadway 'OOHRAH!' is a thin slice of Marine life". New York Daily News . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  15. Billington, Michael (June 28, 2010). "Miss Lilly Gets Boned". The Guardian . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  16. Hetrick, Adam (September 11, 2019). "Bekah Brunstetter's Miss Lilly Gets Boned Sets West Coast Premiere". Playbill . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  17. Scott, Jeffrey (October 6, 2019). "BWW Review: MISS LILLY GETS BONED at Rogue Machine Theatre". BroadwayWorld . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  18. 1 2 Rooney, David (May 2, 2011). "Learning to Grieve in a Grown-Up World". The New York Times . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  19. Hetrick, Adam (May 2, 2011). "Good Grief: Bekah Brunstetter's Be a Good Little Widow Opens Off-Broadway May 2". Playbill . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  20. Jones, Chris (September 14, 2011). "Be a good little widow? Good luck with that". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  21. Foley, F. Kathleen (April 24, 2014). "Review: 'Be a Good Little Widow' at NoHo Arts Center tears at emotions". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  22. Sexton, Scott (December 27, 2016). "Local woman scores big with TV hit 'This is Us'". Winston-Salem Journal . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  23. Brunstetter, Bekah (May 19, 2018). "How I Landed My Job as a 'This Is Us' Writer" (Interview). Interviewed by Jennifer Chen. Brit+co. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
  24. 1 2 Goldberg, Elana (August 31, 2016). "From Stage to Screen: A Feature on Writer Bekah Brunstetter". Breaking Character Magazine. Archived from the original on March 7, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  25. Blankenship, Mark (June 18, 2013). "In NYC, A Play Festival Spotlights Stories Of Disability". NPR . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  26. Gates, Anita (June 20, 2013). "Disabilities and Drama in an Irreverent Mix". The New York Times . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  27. Evans, Suzy (September 17, 2014). "Women Push for Equality On and Off Stage". American Theatre. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  28. Ito, Robert (March 1, 2019). "How the Kilroys Are Beating Theater's Boys Club". Los Angeles Magazine. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  29. Pressley, Nelson (September 7, 2015). "The game of life, learned on 'The Oregon Trail'". The Washington Post . Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  30. 1 2 Ito, Robert (July 11, 2017). "From 'This is Us' to 'The Cake,' Bekah Brunstetter Has a Full Plate". The New York Times . Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  31. 1 2 3 Miller, Daryl H. (June 28, 2017). "The politics of wedding cake: 'This is Us' writer Bekah Brunstetter ices a big year with a timely play". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  32. Brandes, Philip (June 5, 2017). "A Christian conservative baker, a gay wedding and the smart, funny play 'The Cake'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  33. Cunningham, Kimberly (January 29, 2018). "La Jolla Playhouse's 'The Cake' Tackles a Timely Topic". San Diego Magazine. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  34. Chen, Wei-Huan (June 8, 2018). "Review: Alley Theatre's 'Cake' offers more than a simple sugar high" . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  35. Green, Jesse (March 5, 2019). "Review: 'The Cake' Is Well-Baked but Not Quite Filling". The New York Times . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  36. Sava, Oliver (June 18, 2017). "American Gods Season Finale Recap: Don't Cross Easter". Vulture. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  37. Treanor, Lorraine (March 14, 2017). "Playwright Bekah Brunstetter: why NBC's This Is Us is connecting with millions of fans". D.C. Theatre Scene. Retrieved March 7, 2019.
  38. "69th Emmy Awards Nominees and Winners: Outstanding Drama Series - 2017". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  39. "70th Emmy Awards Nominees and Winners: Outstanding Drama Series - 2018". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  40. "71st Emmy Awards Nominees and Winners: Outstanding Drama Series - 2019". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  41. Otterson, Joe (May 26, 2017). "2016-17 TV Season: NBC Leads Demo, CBS Takes Viewers, 'This Is Us' No. 1 New Show". Variety . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  42. Brunstetter, Bekah (March 21, 2019). "Playwright Bekah Brunstetter on "The Cake," Working on "This Is Us," and The Kilroys" (Interview). Interviewed by Holly Rosen Fink. Women and Hollywood. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  43. 1 2 Stoltenberg, John (June 6, 2016). "Review #1: 'Going to a Place Where You Already Are' at Theater Alliance". DC Metro Theater Arts. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  44. Ostrow, Joanne (April 4, 2018). "A writer and producer of the NBC tear-jerking hit "This Is Us" is bringing her play to Boulder". The Denver Post . Retrieved March 4, 2019.
  45. Miller, Daryl H. (March 14, 2016). "'Going to a Place Where You Already Are' is headed toward a really good place". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  46. Wittman, Juliet (April 18, 2018). "Review: Bekah Brunstetter's Going to a Place Where You Already Are Doesn't Go Far". Westword . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  47. Fierberg, Ruthie (January 31, 2018). "This Is Us' Bekah Brunstetter and 9 Other Rising Writers Earn DGF Grants". Playbill . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  48. 1 2 Miller, Deb (June 6, 2019). "Review: 'Public Servant' at Theatre Row". DC Metro Theater Arts. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  49. Collins-Hughes, Laura (June 11, 2019). "Review: In 'Public Servant,' a Changed Daughter Returns From College". The New York Times . Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  50. Lang, Brent (August 9, 2017). "Katie Holmes to Star in Adaptation of Best-Selling Book 'The Secret'". Variety. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  51. Wiseman, Andreas (September 24, 2018). "Katie Holmes & Josh Lucas Pic 'The Secret' Gets Backing From Tri-G, Savvy Media & Shine Box Ahead Of New Orleans Shoot". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  52. Gonzalez, Sandra (January 3, 2019). "'The Notebook' is coming to Broadway". CNN . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  53. Floyd, Thomas (February 9, 2022). "The road to 'A.D. 16,' Olney Theatre's musical about a teenage Mary Magdalene in love with Jesus". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  54. Marks, Peter (February 16, 2022). "Review:In Olney Theatre's hilarious 'A.D. 16', Mary Magdalene and Jesus are meet-cute Nazareth teens". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  55. Stoltenberg, John (February 13, 2022). "Exegesis of a sexy Jesus: A look at love in 'A.D. 16'". DC Theater Arts. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  56. Ritzel, Rebecca (March 8, 2022). "Is A.D. 16 a Musical for the Post-Trump Era?". Washington City Paper . Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  57. Brunstetter, Bekah (October 8, 2016). "Again" . Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  58. Brunstetter, Bekah (March 7, 2017). "Tribekah" . Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  59. Lee, Ashley (March 2, 2017). "Tribeca Film Festival Lineup Includes Whitney Houston, ISIS, Rodney King Riots Docs". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  60. Aucoin, Don (June 29, 2018). "Rupp brings multiple layers to 'The Cake' at Barrington Stage". The Boston Globe . Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  61. Myers, Victoria (January 26, 2017). "An Interview with Bekah Brunstetter". The Interval. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
  62. "I Used to Write on Walls by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  63. "F*cking Art by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  64. "Oohrah! by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  65. "Be a Good Little Widow by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  66. "Going to a Place Where You Already Are by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  67. "The Cake by: Bekah Brunstetter". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved March 9, 2019.