Playwright Bekah Brunstetter was stumped — until she started thinking about heaven
The playwright didn’t have to look farther than her refrigerator door to find inspiration for her new play.
Bekah Brunstetter’s plays have been produced across the country. She’s also a screenwriter, having worked on ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth” and “American Gods,” based on Neil Gaiman’s book.
But two years ago, when she was commissioned by South Coast Repertory to write a script that would premiere at the Tony Award-winning theater, Brunstetter hit a creative wall.
So she and her friend sat in her kitchen brainstorming ideas.
Her friend glanced at the refrigerator door and read a note that was stuck under a magnet.
It was a letter from Brunstetter’s mother, who suggested that she write a play about her mother’s favorite genre — religious literature.
For years, Brunstetter’s mother would send her books about heaven.
In the daughter’s collection are six copies of Todd Burpo’s best-seller “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back,” including one on tape; “Proof of Heaven,” based on a neurosurgeon’s near-death experience; and several other paperbacks offering a glimpse into eternity.
What resulted from her mother’s poke is “Going to a Place where you Already Are,” a love story that explores the meaning of life and the afterlife, with characters asking if there is a heaven. This latest play by Brunstetter is premiering at South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros Stage from Sunday to March 27.
The character Joe says no to the idea of heaven, and his wife, Roberta, has always agreed with him, but lately she’s been pondering the afterlife since she’s at an age when she is attending more funerals than weddings. Their granddaughter doesn’t think about heaven, but that begins to change when mortality confronts the family and Roberta claims to have gone to heaven.
“I tend to write plays about things I’m wrestling with, and my starting point is definitely with a question,” Brunstetter said from her Los Angeles office. “I wanted to make sure the play was open to regardless of what you believe and that it maintains a sense of hopefulness.
“There are a lot of medical explanations and some things that can’t be explained, but I wanted to make sure the play wasn’t alienating people who get frustrated with the idea of religion.”
When she began to conceptualize her first draft almost two years ago, Brunstetter, 33, sat down with her grandparents, who at the time seemed in perfect health. She asked them how they approached death, their beliefs on an afterlife and how they would cope if one lost the other.
By the time she finished the play, they had both died.
“I had these amazing conversations with them that helped with such an emotional process,” Brunstetter said.
She also delved into books that focused on the science and neurology behind reports of near-death experiences and floated in a sensory-deprivation chamber for two hours, imagining herself no longer on Earth.
Repertory director Marc Masterson, whose recent credits include “Zealot” and “Death of a Salesman,” will direct the play. Its five-member cast will be led by SCR favorites Hal Landon Jr. — who has played the role of Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” for 36 years — and Linda Gehringer, who starred in Bill Cain’s largely autobiographical play, “How to Write a New Book for the Bible.”
Brunstetter, a graduate of The New School for Drama in New York City and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said most challenging for her was keeping the married couple’s arguments sound and strong while having them both be right and wrong.
“I feel like I found my niche,” Brunstetter said. “I feel responsible to have the audience leave with a feeling of hope. I want to give them a sense of going back to the world and knowing that everything is going to be OK.”
She has a feeling of hope, but it doesn’t involve the subject of the play. During the play’s closing weekend, Brunstetter’s parents will meet her fiance for the first time.
“It was divine intervention,” Brunstetter said of her loved ones being in the venue at the same time. “I’m really excited.”
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IF YOU GO
What: “Going to a Place where you Already Are”
When: Sunday to March 27; 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 2 and 7:45 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Cost: Tickets start at $22
Information: (714) 708-5555 or visit scr.org
