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Nickel and Dimed - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) Paperback – January 1, 2005

by ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA by Barbara Ehrenreich Joan Holden, based on NICKEL AND DIMED (Author)

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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. The worst, she learns, is not what happens to the back or the knees: it s the damage to the heart. The bright glimpses of Barbara s co-workers that enliven the book become indelible portraits: Gail, the star waitress pushing fifty who can no longer outrun her troubles; Carlie, the hotel maid whose rage has burned down to disgust; Pete, the nursing home cook who retreats into fantasy; Holly, terrified her pregnancy will end her job as Team Leader at Magic Maids, and with it her 50-cent raise. These characters wage their life struggles with a gallantry that humbles Barbara, and the audience. The play shows us the life a third of working Americans now lead, and makes us angry that anyone should have to live it.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (January 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 72 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0822220423
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0822220428
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.25 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,590,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,881 in Theater (Books)

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Barbara Ehrenreich
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BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia, USA.
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Joan Holden
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