Stage openings include dramas, old-time vaudeville

Productions ranging from contemporary drama to old-fashioned vaudeville are on this week's calendar for theatergoers.

• "NICKEL AND DIMED," Joan Holden's drama about Americans who work year-round for poverty-level wages, is being staged this week as one of the events during the University of Utah's Women's Week.

The first performance, on Tuesday, is a benefit for the U. Women's Resource Center. All tickets are $25 each.

There also will be free performances on Wednesday and Thursday. All performances are 7 p.m. in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Tickets also are required for the two free performances (355-2787 or any ArtTix outlet).

Tuesday evening's benefit will include a reception at 5 p.m. and a post-show discussion with Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist whose 2001 book about her experiences as a poverty-wage employee was the basis for Holden's play.

In an effort to study the situation from the trenches, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota and worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels, discovering quickly that no job is truly "unskilled."

• "THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES: A LIFE IN REVUE," a Broadway musical following the legendary humorist's career in the Ziegfeld Follies, is opening a three-week run on Friday in the Heritage Community Theatre, 2505 S. U.S. 89, Perry. Rogers' homespun commentary and rope tricks are integrated into splashy, Ziegfeld production numbers.

Directed by Dee and Nedra Pace, the cast features B.J. Wimpey of Roy, a freshman at Weber State University, as philosopher and world-renowned folk hero Rogers. Other key characters include Betty Rogers, Will's wife, played by Bethany Gentry, Ogden; Clem Rogers, Will's father, played by Dee Pace, Willard; and "Ziegfeld's Favorite," a showgirl, played by Meikjen Pace.

Performances are Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $7 for children and senior citizens, with a $35 "family pass" for up to six people on Monday nights (435-723-8392).

• "SHH! BURLESQUE!" is being staged as a one-night fund-raiser for Tooth & Nail Theatre Company. It's a throwback to the "golden age" of burlesque.

Scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Rose Wagner Center's Black Box Theatre — which will be turned into an intimate cabaret — the show will feature Miss Dirty Martini, a New York-based friend of Tooth & Nail artistic director Roger Benington.