Kick Up your Heels & Gobble Up The Fun!!!
Menopause
The Musical°
The Hilarious Celebration of Women and The Change!
hands and knees; and a nursing-
home aide, washing dishes.
"I learned very quickly that no
job is truly unskilled, that even
the lowest occupations require
exhausting mental and muscular
effort:' she said.
Making Ends Meet
Ehrenreich said no employers —
"most of whom I really didn't like
anyway" — caught on to what
she was doing, and she would
leave a job by simply "not show-
ing up on a Monday."
She added: "I enjoyed the
camaraderie of my co-workers. A
lot of them were funny, bright,
honest and generous, and I let
some of them in on my secret. I
think there's something more
straightforward about blue-collar
work. How do you 'act' like a
waitress, for example? The food
either gets to the table or not."
Pursuing her undercover work
on a strict budget, she took the
cheapest lodgings she could find
and said she enjoyed living in
Portland, Maine, the most.
"I told employers I was just an
inexperienced homemaker
returning to the workforce. I
found that, in order to pay the
rent on time, these workers really
need two jobs. It's a frightening
look at the lives of hard-working
Americans just trying to make
ends meet."
Director Fleischer, who con-
verted to Judaism when she mar-
ried 35 years ago, said she can
identify with the woes of the
minimum wage because she and
her husband, and their parents
before them, came from "poor
families and worked two to three
jobs in the old days." She said:
"We were part of what the people
in the play go through. This issue
should be a huge draw for Jewish
audiences."
Ironically, Fleischer still has
several jobs, also teaching at
Wayne State University in Detroit
and at University of Detroit
Mercy.
Playing the "working mother"
in Nickel and Dimed will be
Barbara Coven-Ellis of White
Lake Township. Others in the
cast, all handling multiple roles,
are Charlotte Leisinger, Charlotte
Nelson and Andy Huff of Detroit;
Mary Jo Cuppone of Ann Arbor;
and Annie Palmer of Ypsilanti.
Since writing Nickel and
Dimed, Ehrenreich, who says she
always injects humor into her
stories, has received hundreds of
letters from "people in poverty
— but who really don't fit the
profile of the unskilled, undered-
ucated, low-wage person. They're
college-educated and, in most
cases, were doing well until they
lost their jobs, usually due to
downsizing or outsourcing."
So, she went undercover again.
Legally changing her name back
to her maiden name so she
couldn't be traced as Ehrenreich,
and armed with a plausible
resume of a professional "in tran-
sition:' she attempted to land a
middle-class job. She underwent
career coaching, personality test-
ing, job fairs and networking
events — and got rejected again
and again.
Ehrenreich has chronicled all
of these experiences in a grim
tale of the white-collar unem-
ployed for her latest book, Bait
and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit
of the American Dream (Henry
Holt & Co.; $24), published in
September.
Will Holden also turn that
story into a play? "I just read the
book, and it's humorous but also
tragic:' she said. "It would be a lot
tougher to do." EJ
Nickel and Dimed opens
Tuesday, Nov. 8, at the Aaron
DeRoy Theatre in the
Jewish Community Center,
6600 W. Maple Road, in
West Bloomfield, and runs
through Dec. 4.
Performances thereafter
are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-
Thursdays (except Nov. 24);
5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays; 2
p.m. Sundays; 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 20; and 2 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 30. Ticket
prices are $27-$37; dis-
counts for seniors and stu-
dents. Information and
tickets: (248) 788-2900.
0..
"The
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TIDE GEM THEATRE • Downtown Detroit
Box Office 313-463-4800
Ticketmaster24g-645-6666 • www.gemtheatre.com • www.menopausethemusicalcom
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November 3 • 2005
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