[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.

[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.

[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.

[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".

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".

[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.

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".

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.