Nickel and Dimed

Right now I'm in "hell week" for Nickel and Dimed. For those of you unfamiliar with the vagaries of theatrical production, "hell week" is the week before a show opens -- the week in which lights, SFX, costumes, and props are all introduced at once. And Nickel and Dimed has 300 props. (For heaven's sake, the first act takes place in a restaurant... with a working kitchen!)

To compensate for this barrage of new information, the actors, designers, crew, and director all pretty much lock themselves into the theatre for a week so that they can sort everything out. ("Hector, you need to grill the steak before you start stirring the mashed potatoes, because Barbara has to serve the steak before Joan comes in with her line about the tour bus..." etc.)

I haven't written anything yet about Nickel and Dimed, but, since people have requested a post, I'll start by offering my director's notes. I wrote them last week when we were preparing the show's playbill.

This, of course, has the added advantage of allowing me to post quickly, so I have time to grab a gyro from Dev before the 5 p.m.-11 p.m. rehearsal tonight. ^__^

Here's what I wrote, and what the audience will read before the show begins:

When I graduated from college in 2004, I had no concept of what it was to work a low-wage job. Sure, I had worked a few jobs in the summers, but never with the intention of supporting myself and certainly never with the idea that this would be a long-term situation.

However, after graduation, I found myself living in an apartment in Minneapolis, learning about the theatre scene and, more importantly, working a series of dead-end jobs: retail, temping, even telemarketing. It was my first time really interacting with people who weren't young, successful students. I met and worked alongside people who were struggling to survive, people who had several kids and no health care, people who had been recently released from prison and who were trying to carve their way back into society. I also worked alongside a large number of young people a few years older than myself, also college-educated, who had found themselves in these jobs because there was little else available in the tight labor market.

What I learned -- what I never learned in college -- was that this world is real. It is not reserved for the "unskilled" or for people who have "screwed up" in life. When life transitions unexpectedly (and it does), any one of us can end up working one of these jobs. Barbara goes into her experiment thinking she can do a better job at low-wage work than the long-term workers because she assumes she's smarter and stronger than them. So did I. We were both wrong.

I hope you enjoy this play. I hope you take something away from it as well. Work in America is a large and complicated topic, and there are few easy solutions, but there is opportunity for thought and discussion and understanding. Thank you for choosing to attend this performance of Nickel and Dimed.