One woman’s laugh-out-loud account of the oddities, indignities, and outright absurdities of a life in show business.

In this hilariously candid memoir about “the actor’s life,” Nancy Balbirer mines two decades of drama school, auditions, bit parts, cameos, and off-Broadway plays for nuggets that alternately entertain and horrify. From studying theater in college under the searing purism of David Mamet (“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 weathering advice from her brazenly insensitive L.A. agent (“I didn’t think it was possible. But you managed to bore Luke Perry”) to scoring a Saturday Night Live audition based on a drunken Debra Winger impersonation, Balbirer recounts her sometimes bizarre, sometimes painful, and always unforgettable adventures. Featuring an eccentric cast of characters, including a Whitney Houston–quoting would-be spiritualist; an infatuated acting teacher who drives her up to Maine, makes a pass at her, then teaches her how to shoot a gun; and a friend-turned-sitcom-superstar who, rumor has it, secretly cuts Nancy’s guest spot from the show, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is an archly comic memoir from a one-of-a-kind talent. It is also, at heart, a deeply moving story of a woman’s search to find herself. Nancy’s continual struggles with ambition and disappointment, her subtle yet destructive quest for male approval (both personal and professional), and her burgeoning love of writing, will resonate with anyone who has ever wrestled to come to terms with what we want, and who, in the end, we truly are.