[note 2][7] Elizabeth Brunton made her theatrical debut in 1815, in her father's theatre at Lynn, playing Desdemona opposite Charles Kemble as Othello.

Her father thought her talents more suited to comedy, and she therefore next played Letitia Hardy in the Belle's Stratagem, opposite Robert William Elliston as Doricourt.

Her first season included roles as Miss Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Viola in Twelfth Night, Imogen, Cora in Pizarro, Lady Elizabeth Freelove in the Day after the Wedding, and Myrtillo in the Broken Sword.

She had an original part in A Word for the Ladies, and was the first Jeanie Deans in Daniel Terry's adaptation of Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian.

In the 1823–24 season, Brunton appeared in Bath as Albina Mandeville in The Will; as Belinda in All in the Wrong, Clarinda in the Suspicious Husband, The Peasant Boy, Helen Worrett in Man and Wife, Aladdin, Widow Cheerly in The Soldier's Daughter, Miss Dorillon in Wives as they were, Cynthia in Oberon and Cynthia, Biddy Tipkin in The Tender Husband, Dolly Bull in Fontainebleau, Clara in Matrimony, Olivia in Bold Stroke for a Husband, Lydia Languish and Actress of All Work and Harriet in Is he jealous?.

Additionally, she played Orynthe in Fitzball's Earthquake, Mona in Charles Mathews's Truth, Elizabeth Stanton in Fitzball's Tom Cringle, Valsha in Stirling Coyne's's Valsha, Grace Darling in Edward Stirling's Grace Darling, and Miss Aubrey in Richard Brinsley Peake's Ten Thousand a Year.

After the death of her husband, in June 1842, Yates tried a year's management at the Adelphi Theatre with Mary Gladstane, but found the task too much for her.