excerpted from
'This is Us’ to ‘The Cake,’ Bekah Brunstetter Has a Full Plate
by Robert Ito
New York Times, July 11, 2017
link to full article
LOS ANGELES — In “The Cake,” a baker, congenial and accommodating in just about every other respect, refuses to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Sound familiar? The play was inspired in part by a run of similar rebuffs across the country, by vendors who felt that it would compromise their religious beliefs to help commemorate such a union. In most cases, the bakers and spouses-to-be are strangers. But what if they weren’t? What if the baker were the best friend of the bride’s mom, a lifelong friend, practically kin?...
With “The Cake,” Bekah Brunstetter drew a lot from her own experiences growing up in Winston-Salem, N.C., alongside three brothers, all who served or are serving in the Marines, and attending a Southern Baptist church, which she said was all about love, “not the fire and brimstone kind.”
In the play, Jen (Shannon Lucio) returns to her hometown in North Carolina to marry Macy (Carolyn Ratteray), an African-American New Yorker who doesn’t eat gluten (and, hence, cakes) and doesn’t particularly care for the South. When Jen enlists Della (Debra Jo Rupp), who loves baking and Jen almost as much as she loves Jesus, to create her wedding cake, it nearly kills Della to say no.
“The Dellas of the world are wonderful, loving people,” Ms. Brunstetter said. “I want Jen and Macy to be full human beings, and I want us to root for their love. But there are lots of plays and movies about Jen and Macy. There really aren’t very many about Della.”
Ms. Ratteray agreed. “I’m queer and I’m black, so of course I side with Macy,” she said. “But you definitely feel for Della, and I think it’s because Bekah wrote her with such incredible humanity and heart.”...
“I’m fascinated by stories where somebody said this stupid thing, and then all of a sudden, we all hate them, they’re horrible people,” she said. “I always have sympathy for them, because I say stupid things all the time. I’m probably saying something stupid right now.”
The play was a way for Ms. Brunstetter to have a conversation with her parents about gay marriage without actually doing so. “I’ve tried to talk to them about why I support gay marriage and why I support my gay friends, and those conversations never really go anywhere,” she said. “I’m horrible at arguments. But when I’m writing a scene, I get to say what I wish I had said.”...
Jennifer Chambers, the director, who worked with Ms. Brunstetter on the play from its earliest days at the Playwrights Lab, knew that she had a strong drama from the start. “But I can’t tell you how many times we went, I wonder if this is still relevant?” she said. “Because it really did feel like, culturally, we were moving away from this. And then Trump became president, and the show has taken on a whole other tone.”
She’s also working on three new musicals. One is a piece with Karen O, the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, called “Hearts Beat So Loud”; another is an R&B musical co-written by Cinco Paul (a writer of the “Despicable Me” series), about a young Mary Magdalene falling in love with a teenage Jesus. “I’ve actually already written a few plays about Jesus as a teenager,” she said, “so I had some material all ready to go.”...
Oh! So maybe Ms Brunstetter has more than one script we should take a look at...
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