Burlington Players Present “Working for Crumbs,” a Dark Workplace Comedy, Through March 8

The latest show to come to Burlington's Park Playhouse is a dark comedy that cast members hope will give the audience a two-hour respite from real life.

The Burlington Players will be performing Kate Danley’s unpublished play, “Working for Crumbs,” from now until March 8. Director Chris Rose said the show is a dark workplace comedy centered on two coworkers who are competing for the same position.

Rose said he first heard about the play when Danley, a Seattle playwright, sent a copy to the Players in 2020. The theater’s play reading committee thought it was great and presented it to the membership, which voted to make this one of the four productions for the 2024-25 season.

“This is an unpublished draft that she sent, and it’s rare to find something like that,” said Rose, a Burlington resident who has worked with Burlington Players since 1994, doing jobs including set design, acting, and directing. Professionally, he works as a data analyst for LogixHealth.

Danley said this is her second major full-length play and one of eight registered on the New Play Exchange, an online catalog of self-published plays, though none of her works is officially published. She said she started writing "Working for Crumbs" in 2016 while doing commercial production in New York, and the play has a lot of “biographical elements to it.” There have been five full productions of the play, but this will be the first time it will be performed in Massachusetts; Danley said she's excited.

Rose said he and Danley communicated via directly throughout the show’s process. She answered any questions he or the actors had and discussed different suggestions, such as changing one of the characters originally written as a male to a female because the character is being played by an actress, Rose said. He also had a couple of Danley’s old drafts and talked to her about reverting certain things back to an earlier idea.

“It’s true of every production that an actor and a director can bring whatever their vision is to that production or role, but with an unpublished play, you have even more license,” said Jacey Rutledge, who plays Grace, one of the lead characters. 

“It's exciting too because the audience doesn't really know the show, and when you're giving the elevator pitch 'It’s like "9 to 5: meets "Weekend at Bernie's,"’ they're like, ‘Oh, that sounds interesting,’ but nobody knows what's gonna actually happen in the show,” said Angel Rossi, who plays the other lead character, Amy.

Rossi lives in South Hamilton and Rutledge in Billerica, and they both have been members of the Burlington Players for over 20 years. Rossi said they were in a Burlington Players’ show together in 2002, but this is their first show together since then. 

A big reason they have not done a show together in so long, said Rutledge, is because there are not a lot of female roles and if they both auditioned for a show, they tended to compete for the same part. 

“There are not a ton of comedies like this, written for female characters,” Rutledge said. “I’ve done a lot of Shakespeare where I’ve played male characters who are the clown roles, so it’s nice to have that kind of comedy written specifically for not male characters.”

Rossi added that there are not many female roles that lean into physical comedy, and usually when female characters do take on that type of role, they are “scantily clad.” 

Danley said her favorite thing about collaborating with The Burlington Players is how much they love the script and respect playwrights.

“I wrote the script because I really believe that we need more funny women on stage,” Danley said. “They understood it, and they really sought out performers who had that spirit.”

“It’s just a show where you go to laugh,” said Brit Barone, who is playing the supporting role, Molly. “Sometimes it’s nice to just see a show where your takeaway is that you had a good time.”

Barone, who lives in Salem, is the director of student life for summer programs at Berklee College of Music. This is her first show with the Burlington Players, and she said she is the only person involved in the show who did not know anybody before she joined the cast. 

“I think my favorite thing has been getting to know this completely new space and new production company and new group of people,” Barone said. “Everyone’s been really welcoming and cool.”

There will be nine performances of “Working for Crumbs” from Feb. 21 to March 8 in the 85-seat theatre. Tickets are $20; students and seniors pay $18. 

The Burlington Players, an all-volunteer community theater group of adults from Burlington and surrounding towns, was established in 1965 and has been using the Park Playhouse as its permanent residence since 1985.

Rutledge said people should come to see “Working for Crumbs” because the show is funny and “epically ridiculous,” and people need a break from reality. 

“Laughing is key to being alive, so we need to laugh a lot, especially these days,” Rutledge said.

This story is part of a partnership between Burlington Buzz and the Boston University Department of Journalism.