In the Upper Room
Finalist, the O'Neill Center's National Playwrights Conference (2018). Developed at the Colorado New Play Summit and produced at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (2022), directed by Gregg T. Daniel.
Playwright · Novelist · Filmmaker
Beaufield Berry
Playwright, novelist, mother, filmmaker, storyteller — writing toward the uncomfortable: the contradictions inside motherhood, womanhood, race, power, desire, and survival. Her work lives where the personal becomes political, where the stories we've been taught to hide finally get told.
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About
Omaha, Nebraska
A Midwest storyteller working in every form that will hold the truth.
Beaufield Berry is an Omaha-based playwright, novelist, poet, and filmmaker whose work mines the drama, history, and joy of the Black Diaspora — often through her own multi-generational family's strong personalities, conflicts, secrets, and abiding love. She's a teaching artist with Omaha Performing Arts and a contributing writer for Omaha Magazine, and her plays and films have been produced and developed from Omaha to Denver to Los Angeles.
Off the page, she founded Village Co-Op, an education cooperative in Benson, and is co-founder of Agribella Orbis, a storytelling nonprofit. She also serves as Executive Director of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund — work that comes from the same place as her writing: the belief that a story told honestly, in public, is how change actually starts.
She's also a mother — and that's not a footnote to the work, it's woven through it, from the family stories at the center of her plays to the unfiltered essays she publishes as Good Mom.
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Selected Work
Plays & Fiction
Red Summer
A sold-out run at BlueBarn Theatre (2019), confronting the 1919 lynching of Will Brown in Omaha and its long shadow.
Six Guns Runnin'
A historical country-western musical about Black frontier women — Stagecoach Mary, Biddy Mason, and the women who rode with the Pony Express — originally developed as Buffalo Women, premiering at BlueBarn Theatre.
Psycho Ex-Girlfriend
A dark comedy about the after-life of a bad breakup — and the story we tell ourselves to survive it.
The Waiting Line
A drama exploring the weight of waiting — for justice, for change, for someone else to go first.
Childhood Friends
Beaufield's debut novel, following the bonds and fractures of friendship across a lifetime.
Josephine Baker
A new musical about the life of Josephine Baker — dancer, entertainer, and civil rights icon — currently in development out of New York.
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Film
A film by Beaufield Berry
MISOPROSTOL
Beaufield's filmmaking debut — written, directed, and produced by her. The short follows a woman's decision to have an at-home abortion using misoprostol, told as a personal experience rather than an ideological argument. Shot in a single day in Omaha with a tight-knit local crew, starring Casey Jane and shot by cinematographer Michael Hennings.
Premiered at the Benson Theatre in June 2026. Now nominated for the LA Independent Women Film Awards, with submissions out to Sundance, Telluride, and the Berlin Short Film Festival.
Benson Theatre · Premiere 2026
LA Independent Women Film Awards · Nominee
View on FilmFreeway →
Newsletter
Good Mom, est. 1984
A personal essay newsletter on Substack — motherhood under real strain, leaving a marriage that was no longer working, boundaries, self-worth, and sharp, specific writing about race in America. Not parenting tips. The unfiltered version. A Good Mom lifestyle brand is also in the works.
Subscribe on Substack →
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Storytelling & Advocacy
Building rooms where the hard stories get told.
Agribella Orbis
A storytelling nonprofit Beaufield co-founded, helping people find the courage to share stories of stigma in public settings — "crucibles of healing through community, storytelling, partnership, compassion, art, and fundraising." Programs include String Light Stories, My Name Is... Voices of the Trans Community, My Body, My Voice, My Choice: Abortion Stories, and The Flora and Fauna.
agribellaorbis.com →Iowa Abortion Access Fund
Beaufield serves as Executive Director, supporting Iowans' access to abortion care — advocacy work rooted in the same conviction that drives her storytelling: dignity requires honesty, and honesty requires a safe place to speak.
iowaabortionaccessfund.org →
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In the Press & Writing
Coverage & Contributions
Beaufield Berry, Playwright: Her Family and the Larger Black Experience
Omaha Magazine →
Contributing writer — articles for Omaha Magazine
Omaha Magazine →
Beaufield Berry-Fisher Is Changing Omaha's Arts Landscape
The Reader →
Beaufield Berry Brings It All Back Home
American Theatre →
Playwright Beaufield Berry Draws on Her Own Family for In the Upper Room
Denver Center →
Today's Omaha Woman: Beaufield Berry-Fisher
Women's Fund of Omaha →
Connect
Follow the work, in one place.
Playwriting, filmmaking, and the newsletter — plus whatever's next.
beaufieldberry@gmail.comContact
Direct: beaufieldberry@gmail.com
Management: Gerry Pass, Chrome Entertainment