Standing Naked in the Wings

By Mason Green and Tedde Moore

This delightful collection is the only work to bring together first-hand stories from Canada's acting community. Funny, shocking, embarrassing and poignant, these are the stories that actors tell each other, providing an intimate glance into the world behind the camera and beyond the footlights. Arranged thematically, it starts with "The Audition", a chapter that focuses on one of the more humiliating experiences that all actors must face. Among the many stories is one by Patrick McKenna called "Dead Man Dancing" that relates a disastrous audition and amply shows why one of the two Gemini awards he won this year was for comedy. Othe chapters look at mentors, directors and producers, working with kids and animals, missed cues and lines, touring, audiences and fans, pranks and escapades, and live radio and TV performances. "Big Wigs and Legends" contains anecdotes starring names like Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Sir John Gielgud, Julie Andrews, Vanessa Redgrave, Steven Speilberg, Richard Burton, Barbra Striesand, Laurence Olivier, and Katherine Hepburn.Included are many stories from the Stratford Festival: Scott Wentworth cracking up during Richard III, an actor on stage catching fire during a production of Othello and William Hutt's dying in an unconventional manner when Christopher Plummer's Hamlet could not get his sword out of the scabbard (Polonius' death did not look accidental). Along the way you'll find "Bare Bods and Bodily Functions", which includes an anecdote by Bruce Greenwood that begins intriguingly "Standing naked in the wings before an entrance...," as well as "Stunts and SFX", which includes Timothy Findley's story from the first season of Stratford in 1953, when he had to make a "ten-foot leap [from the balustrade] through the dark...and not land on Alec Guiness, whose single spotlight was the only light there was."Brought together by two veteran Canadian actors, Standing Naked in the Wings features a star-studded cast giving the performance of their lives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195414713
• ISBN13: 9780195414714
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.1"

Customer Reviews

Actors Shine While Naked on Stage

Although I was reading a book, I felt like a fly on the wall of a cocktail party attended by Canadian actors. I buzzed around the room eavesdropping on groups of actors telling hilarious, intimate stories of life on the stage and before the cameras.Standing Naked in the Wings is a book of actors' anecdotes written by 250 contributing actors including Jenifer Dale, Al Waxman, Dave Broadfoot, Gordon Pinsent, Sarah Polley, Frank Shuster, Michael Ironside, Martin Short, Lynne Griffin, Gordon Clapp, Christopher Plummer, Sonja Smits.Editors Lynda Mason Green and Tedde Moore have woven the 450 contributions into 17 chapters covering themes such as auditions, mentors, kids and animals, missed cues and other mistakes, bodily functions, tours, early days, and the moving "Family Album". This chapter includes the letter Nicholas Pennell, a veteran of 23 seasons at the Stratford Festival, delivered to the Shakespearean company two days before his death.The book's title is taken from a story in which Bruce Greenwood describes how he was literally standing naked in the wings while performing in Bent at the Arts Club in Vancouver. The Comedy of errors that transpired "bears an uncanny similarity to nightmares I've had," Greenwood writes.

Fun behind-the-scenes look at actors in theatre, TV & film

What a fun book! It's like being the fly on the wall, listening to your favorite actors telling stories, on themselves, their friends and contemporaries. It captures many great (and not so great) moments in Canadian film, TV and theatre. They share their joys, fears, embarrassing moments, poignant memories and a wonderful sense of history. I had read some of the tales online over the last year or so, and the finished product is truly a treat. The only thing, in my opinion, that would make it better, is to have more of the contemporary actors we're seeing on TV, but perhaps there's a sequel there. :)