Profile – A Class of Her Own

Quinta Brunson was a devoted student of the sitcom long before she created "Abbott Elementary."

- By Molly Fischer. Photographs by AB+DM

With a half-hour mockumentary-style comedy about teachers at a majority Black public school in Philadelphia, Brunson created an old-fashioned, mainstrem hit. "Quinta hacked network TV", the comedian and actor Ramy Youssef Said.

In mid-January, two days after Quinta Brunson accepted the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her starring role on the ABC show “Abbott Elementary,” she was in a hair-and-makeup trailer on the Warner Bros. lot at 7 A.M. “I actually was a little late this morning, which I hate, but a pipe burst in my house,” she said. Her voice was still hoarse from a weekend that also included several galas and the Critics Choice Awards. At the Emmys, the television luminary Carol Burnett had presented Brunson with her trophy—she was the first Black woman in more than forty years to win the category. Onstage, Brunson had worn a pink crushed-satin Dior dress with a nineteen-fifties-prom-queen silhouette and proclaimed her love for her family, her show, and her medium. “I don’t even know why I’m so emotional,” she said through tears. “I think, like, the Carol Burnett of it all.”