OLD Whidbey Life Magazine

Tag: Nickel and Dimed

  • OutCast Productions presents ‘Nickel and Dimed’ opening in Langley March 6

    OutCast Productions presents ‘Nickel and Dimed’ opening in Langley March 6

    March 4,2015

    Let’s face the facts: The cycle of poverty in America is shamefully bolstered by corporate managers, who value the market more than the average worker’s well-being.

    Peggy Gilmer, Judith Dankanics, Mona Newbauer and Julia Tewksbury portray the low-wage women workers of “Nickel and Dimed” on (not) getting by in America. / Photo by Jim Carroll of Shu Images
    Peggy Gilmer, Judith Dankanics, Mona Newbauer and Julia Tewksbury portray the low-wage women workers of “Nickel and Dimed” on (not) getting by in America.  (photo by Jim Carroll of Shu Images)

    Joan Holden’s play “Nickel and Dimed” is based on the sociological non-fiction, bestseller “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich, about the author’s undercover odyssey into the world of a low-wage life. OutCast Productions opens the play at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 6 at the Black Box Theater at the Whidbey Island Fairgrounds in Langley. The show runs through Saturday, March 21.

    Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe. But one $7-an-hour job won’t pay the rent. She’ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. Ehrenreich’s book about her discoveries in the hardscrabble life of underpaid women in America is vivid and witty, yet always deeply sobering, and Holden’s script brings that sobering reality to life.

    Julia Tewksbury as Barbara and Eric Anderson as Phillip rehearse Joan Holden’s play “Nickel and Dimed,” based on the nonfiction bestseller by Barbara Ehrenreich. / Photo by Jim Carroll of Shu Images
    Julia Tewksbury as Barbara and Eric Anderson as Phillip rehearse Joan Holden’s play “Nickel and Dimed,” based on the nonfiction bestseller by Barbara Ehrenreich. (photo by Jim Carroll of Shu Images)

    Director K. Sandy O’Brien maintains a comic lightness throughout, as the middle-aged Barbara stumbles around the country from one hard-knock job to another. Meanwhile, what is finally illuminated is the ultimate conclusion of Ehrenreich’s study: There is a dark shadow of oppression that continues to weigh heavily on the low-wage workforce of America.

    The cast includes Eric Andersen, Sean Brennan, Jim Carroll, Judith Dankanics, Patricia Duff, Peggy Gilmer, Doug Kolb, Hannah Mack, Mona Newbauer and Julia Tewksbury (as Barbara).

    Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, March 6 to 21; at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 19; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 15. Doors open one half hour before show time.

    Tickets are $18 for adults and $14 for student/seniors.

    Tickets are available via Brown Paper Tickets here. You can also reserve tickets and pay at the door by cash or check by emailing us at ocp@whidbey.com.

    The Black Box Theater is located at  819 Camano Ave. in Langley. Find out more at www.outcastproductions.net.

  • Season tickets on sale for OutCast Productions, 2015

    Season tickets on sale for OutCast Productions, 2015

    Jan. 13, 2015

    Season tickets are on sale for OutCast Productions 2015 theater season. Get them at Brown Paper Tickets.

    The season kicks off with “Nickel and Dimed” by Joan Holden, based on the non-fiction book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. The show will be directed by K. Sandy O’Brien and opens March 6. Here’s a break-down of the entire season which runs from March to October.

    Nickel and Dimed book cover

    • March 6 to 21, “Nickel and Dimed” by Joan Holden, based on the non-fiction book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich, and directed by K. Sandy O’Brien.

    Can a middle-aged, middle-class woman survive when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour? Maybe.

    But one $7-an-hour job won’t pay the rent: she’ll have to do back-to-back shifts, as a chambermaid and a waitress. This isn’t the first surprise for acclaimed author Barbara, who set out to research low-wage life firsthand, confident she was prepared for the worst.

    Barbara Ehrenreich’s best-seller about her odyssey is vivid and witty, yet always deeply sobering. Joan Holden’s stage adaptation is a focused, comic epic shadowed with tragedy.

    Barbara is prepared for hard work but not, at 55, for double shifts and nonstop aches and pains; for having to share tiny rooms, live on fast food because she has no place to cook, beg from food pantries, gulp handfuls of Ibuprofen because she can’t afford a doctor; for failing, after all that, to make ends meet; or for constantly having to swallow humiliation.

    • May 8 to 23, “In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play” by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Ned Farley.

    In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator.

    Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter—and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new “hysterical” patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor’s home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.

    • July 10 to 25, “The Pillowman” by Martin McDonagh; directed by Katie Woodzick.

    With echoes of Stoppard, Kafka and the Brothers Grimm, “The Pillowman” centers on a writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is being interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a series of child murders. The result is an urgent work of theatrical bravura and an unflinching examination of the very nature and purpose of art.

    • Sept. 18 to Oct. 3, “Looped” by Matthew Lombardo – in the Northwest premiere and directed by Sean Brennan.

    “Looped” tells the story of internationally celebrated actress Tallulah Bankhead as she is called into a sound studio in 1965 to re-record (or “loop”) one line of dialogue for what would be her last film, the dreadful “Die, Die My Darling.” Southern, but by no means a belle, Bankhead was known for her wild partying and convention-defying exploits that outshone even today’s celebrity bad girls. Given her inebriated state (and inability to loop the line perfectly), what ensues is a hilarious showdown between an uptight and conservative sound editor, Danny Miller, and the outrageous star.

    OutCast performs all its shows at the Whidbey Island Fairgrounds’ Black Box Theater, 819 Camano Ave. in Langley For more information about OutCast and its upcoming season, visit www.outcastproductions.net.