Birkenhead made her Broadway debut as one of a team of songwriters contributing to Working (1978), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination.
[3] Birkenhead's Off-Broadway and regional theatre credits include What About Luv?, a musical adaptation of the Murray Schisgal play Luv, for which she won the Outer Critics Circle Award; Pieces of Eight with Jule Styne and Michael Stewart; Fanny Hackabout Jones with Erica Jong and Lucy Simon; The Night They Raided Minsky's with Charles Strouse and Evan Hunter, the new musical Minsky's based on the same; and, in collaboration with Henry Krieger, two potentially Broadway-bound projects based on hit films, The Flamingo Kid and Moonstruck (with a book by screenwriter John Patrick Shanley).
Birkenhead is one of several lyricists who contributed to Hats!, a musical inspired by the Red Hat Society, which is enjoying an open-ended run at Harrah's New Orleans, after premiering at the New Denver Civic Theatre.
[4] The musical had a limited engagement at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago starting in April 2007.
It premiered at the Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company on May 12, 2019, which was followed by a London production in 2023.