Bekah Brunstetter was the 2009 playwright in residence at Ars Nova. She received her BA (Theater/Fiction Writing) from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004. As of May 2007, she is a proud recipient of an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. Her plays include: OOHRAH! (Ars Nova outloud reading series, dir, Leigh Silverman; to premiere in London, the Finborough Theater, May 2009), TO NINEVEH (NY Innovative Theater Award for Best new full length play, 2006) SICK (winner, Samuel French short play festival 2006), GREEN (finalist, Alliance Theater’s Kendeda Competition; national finalist, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival; semi-finalist, O’Neill 2007), SPACE (semi-finalist, Princess Grace Award 2007) I USED TO WRITE ON WALLS (published and licensed by Samuel French) FAT KIDS ON FIRE, YOU MAY GO NOW: A MARRIAGE PLAY (nominee, Cherry Lane Mentorship, 2008l semi-finalist, O’Neill 2008, winner, 2008 NYIT award for best new Full Length Play (Babel Theater Project), ARMS (finalist, Heidemann Award, 2007), LE FOU (The Atlantic Acting school), HAPPY BIRTHDAY/ I’M DEAD (finalist, 2007 Samuel French Short Play Festival), MISS LILLY GETS BONED (nominee, 2008 L. Arnold Weissberger Award), CELEBRITY , and TORCH NUMBER 2 (SOHO Think Tank.), and F*CKING ART (winner, Samuel French Short play Festival 2008.) . Her plays have been read and produced by the Babel Theatre Project, The Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, the Ohio Theater (Think Tank), NYU, Centenary Stage, NC New Voices, The New School for Drama, Working Man’s Clothes, Flux Theatre Ensemble, Phare Play Productions, Old Vic/ New Voices, Boston Theatre Works, Manhattan Theatre Source, SPF, The Alliance Theater, and The Atlantic (Acting School.) In New York, she serves as the director of New Play Development for Working Man’s Clothes Productions. She is a member of the Ars Nova play group, the Playwright’s Center, At Play Productions, and the Dramatist’s Guild, and the Women’s Project Writer’s Lab. Bekah lives in Williamsburg with her bikes, Roberta and Tony, and her cat, the Baby Kitty.

Check out Bekah’s plays,
available from Samuel French
OOHRAH!
I Used to Write on Walls
F*cking Art
Sick

Q & A with Bekah Brunstetter

Q: Your play OOHRAH! focuses on the impact military service can have on the home front. How did your own family’s military background influence the piece?

Oh, it influenced it very much! I would have been lost without my little brothers as dramaturges. After writing a few drafts, I finally got the balls to show it to them, and they helped me make the play more authentic. I had gotten the emotional gist of the characters right, but they helped me with specifics and details.

Basically, Ive always felt this need to write plays that shine a new light on what it is to be a soldier, to serve ones country. A part of me gets mad when I hear or read something sensational about soldiers with post traumatic stress; young Americans that are duped into service, that are jaded or scarred. Not that this hasn’t been the truthful experience of some; it’s just that I would say that the military has been a great experience for my brothers. They are extremely gifted and capable soldiers and take a lot of pride in what they do, and I don’t know, I’m just really proud of them, and get tired of anti-war sentiments, which border on disrespect towards those who are serving. ANYWHOO. I very much wanted to try and tell this story—this need, desire to serve—and subsequently—a feeling of uselessness when one is not serving, which I’ve observed in the Brothers Brunstetter.

Q: You are a two-time winner of the Samuel French OOB Short Play Competition (SICK in 2006, F*CKING ART in 2008). Are there differences in how you approach writing a short play versus a full length piece?

That’s a great question! I think you have to think much more simply. Economically. You have to figure out a way to keep the play small and simultaneously LARGE—so that the play subtly contains something so much larger than the few people we’re hearing from onstage. I think I usually start with something small like an image or line, and then build upon it. I also try and keep the location small and specific so that you don’t end up with half the play’s time elapsing via set changes, lengthy exposition, etc.

Q: Female desire is front and center in your play, I USED TO WRITE ON WALLS, in which many women find themselves attracted to the same man. What was the initial impulse behind writing the play?

Oh wow! Well. When I first moved to New York, I was doing a lot of the ‘dating’ as it were. I dated some umm, characters, and had a slew of play-worthy, horribly amazing, embarrassing times. I don’t know if there was a singular moment when I became aware of this, but: I started to think about my behavior in relationships, in dating, my behavior as a lady, in general. The psychology of my heart. I was confused by a lot of my own feelings, actions and patterns. I think the play was born of this confusion and a need to understand myself better—and women in general. As progressive and empowered and as intelligent we are as a sex, we tend to melt in the palm of a large, sexy hand. And so, I wrote a play about it!

Q: When and/or how did you know that you wanted to create plays?

I don’t have some fun story about my actor-mother taking me to see A Long Day’s Journey Into Night when I was 10. I wish I did. Instead! I would make my brothers put on plays with me when I was little, so I guess, that is when it first began? They were really profound and usually involved Winnie the Pooh. I wrote poetry and short stories through elementary and middle school—and always identified myself as a writer. I started doing theater in high school, to try and come out of my shell, and was ‘in’ plays (badly). I decided to major in Theater at UNC Chapel Hill, while pursuing a Minor in Fiction Writing. It was during my first semester of college that I decided to write a play—it just made so much sense, to marry two of the things that I liked best! I was pretty much instantly hooked. It was a thing that made me feel special; it was therapeutic, productive and imaginative. At UNC, there is this great thing called Studio II – it’s a sector of the Drama Department, with funding (WHAT???) solely dedicated to the production of student written plays. So, my four years of college, I was able to not only write my first crazy plays, but actually see them fully produced, which was incredible.

Q: What inspires you to take on a new project?

I am horribly bad at saying NO. Ha! I really am. I will say, no more new projects, Brunstetter! But then I get a new idea or get asked to look at something new – I can’t help but take a look or ponder. It’s always the story being told that I’m most attracted to – if it’s a story that hasn’t been told before, that NEEDS to be told; that needs to be told in a new light. Or, it’s a person that I feel a strong creative connection / friendship with that I really want to do something with. I like to keep my hands in lots of pots, to the point of madness. Yay! I figure I might as well, while I have the energy, and before I have the babies?

Q: Have you ever come across a production that made you see one of your plays in a new or unexpected way?

Oh, for sure! Like: the first production of OOHRAH! at this little theater in London, before the Atlantic Production. The actors were so quiet and truthful. The set was next to nothing; and the actors would sit or stand close to each other—just talking to each other. I oftentimes write these weird or funny things that are quiet in my mind—but loud in the playing of them, or the interpretation of them. Not that THAT interpretation isn’t also right—it was just good and interesting to see a quiet, simmering version of my characters. I think the perfect playing is somewhere in the middle. And also! I just came back from a reading of my play Miss Lilly Gets Boned at the Aurora Theater in Berkeley, CA. I showed up the day before the reading, and met all the actors/director for the first time. I’ve been spoiled here with some great actors helping me develop the play, but these actors didn’t know me from Adam. And yet—they brought so much to it, and really got it, as did the audience, which was very encouraging, that there was something universal going on in the play. It was nice to see these gracious strangers engaged in something I wrote.

(Photo courtesy of the author)