Previews: THE CAKE at The Bent

From April 4, 2025 to April 12, 2025, love, faith, and a wedding cake will collide in The Bent’s bold new production of The Cake, the off-Broadway hit comedy by Bekah Brunstetter, and directed by Kudra Wagner at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. 

Brunstetter’s has worked as a writer and producer on television hits American Gods, Switched at Birth, and This is Us, however her career as a playwright began long before that. Her published plays are 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. 

The Cake, which first premiered in 2017, is Brunstetter’s heartfelt and thought-provoking comedy with “humor as rich as buttercream and layers as deep as the cake at its center.” The play explores love and faith, and the complexities that arise when a North Carolina baker is asked to bake a wedding cake for her late Best Friend’s daughter. She is thrilled until she finds out the daughter is marrying another woman. She finds herself at a crossroads - torn between her devotion to her beliefs and her love for someone she considers family. 

As she wrestles with her decision, she realizes things about herself, her faith, and her traditions layer by imperfect layer, revealing the messiness—and beauty—of human connection reminding us that cake is best when shared.

Brunstetter was inspired by the US Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission testing the right to refuse service on the basis of the owner's religious beliefs.

Featuring Sonia Reavis, Jessica Collins, Paul Crane, and Sarah Elizabeth Woolsey. 

“With warmth, humor, and a whole lot of heart, this play invites us to look beyond the surface and see  the deeper layers within ourselves and others,” says director, Kudra Wagner. “It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it opens the door to conversation, understanding, and, ultimately, love.” 

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