Take Your Shirt Off and Cry

Without sparing the embarrassing details, Balbirer chronicles the two decades she spent as a struggling actress in the trenches of show business. From the searing purist tutelage of David Mamet at NYU Drama School ("In show business, women who are lucky enough to find employment are asked to do only two things in every role they ever play: take your shirt off and cry") to her bizarre 1 AM Saturday Night Live audition for Lorne Michael, Balbirer recounts her sometimes disappointing, sometimes painful, and always bizarre adventures. Among the stories in Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is "Friendly Fire," which is about Nancy's friendship and eventual falling out with a good friend who went on to become a huge star with a top-rated sitcom. Fame may not have knocked on her door, but it certainly slept on her couch. Take your Shirt Off and Cry is an utterly engaging, deeply personal, and absurdly comic memoir from a one-of-a-kind talent.

Nancy Balbirer is the author and star of the critically acclaimed solo show I Slept With Jack Kerouac and Other Stories, and the co-creator of the cult reading series, Cause Celeb! She has co-starred on Seinfeld and MTV's Remote Control, performed off-Broadway, and appears regularly in New York City's alternative cabaret scene. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the co-owner, designer and doyenne of the West Village boite, Pasita. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter.