BREAD AND ROSES
by Timothy Krause
In 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, a sudden pay cut at Marston Mills ignites a monumental textile strike. Ellen, a thoughtful floor lady from a wealthy Philadelphia background, is caught between two worlds. She is engaged to the ambitious mill manager, Joseph, but finds her loyalties shifting toward her struggling coworkers: the fiery union organizer Catherine and the grieving widow Werka. As the conflict escalates into arson and violence, a manipulative inspector, Michael, threatens to expose Ellen’s scandalous past to blackmail her. Realizing Joseph’s corporate greed and disregard for human life mirror the hollow high-society existence she once fled, Ellen finds the inner strength to reject social pretense and join the picket line to demand both fair wages and quality of life.
- Cast Size: 2M 3W
- Running Time: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Timothy Krause is an Oregon-based playwright whose body of work spans full-length period dramas, jukebox musicals, meta-theatrical comedies, and more. His acclaimed drama Bread and Roses won the 2024 Portland Civic Theatre Guild New Play Award, while Timber and Shadow explores moral survival in an 1890s logging camp. Full-length works also include a 1980s LGBTQ+ coming-out drama Closet Prayers and jukebox musicals like the Jazz Age rom-com Boom Crash Love and the vaudeville Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil. Krause’s short plays and adaptations—including Dead On and Let’s Get It Over With (both published in the Journal of the Pirandello Society of America), the one-act drama Now Are You Afraid of Me?, the commedia-style comedy Yes, Indeed!, and works like A Density of Thought and About Face—all frequently examine truth versus illusion, meta-theatricality, and human connection. Timothy Krause holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Southwest Minnesota State University, a B.A. in Spanish, and an M.A. in TESOL from Portland State University. He currently teaches ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) at Portland Community College. For more: tinyurl.com/timkra
Review Bread and Roses.