| agent | A person who represents an actor by soliciting employment and negotiating contracts in exchange for 10 percent of the actor's salary. (7-115)
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| artistic director | The administrative head of a not-for-profit theatre company whose responsibilities include selection of the plays to be produced and the directors, designers, and actors. (7-115)
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| audition | A process by which actors are selected for roles; it involves actors performing short portions of a play or song; the word is derived from "audio" meaning "to hear." (7-114)
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| beat | The smallest segment of an actor's role; a subdivision of a "unit" during which a very simple objective is achieved. (7-105)
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| break-down | A list of the characters in a play that is sent from a casting director to actors' agents as part of the process of casting the roles in a play. (7-115)
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| call-back | An audition for which actors have been "called back" by the producer and director for a second reading. (7-117)
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| casting director | A person hired by a producer or theatre to organize auditions and to select actors from among those submitted by agents. (7-115)
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| context | The space, people, and time that influence an actor's preparation of a role. (7-109)
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| discipline | The conscious application of an actor's skill, time, and talent to achieve an optimal performance. (7-109)
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| emotional recall | A tool of the Stanislavsky System of acting by which an actor remembers how he or she felt in a similar situation in real life and substitutes that feeling for the character's emotional state during the performance of a role. (7-108)
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| imagination | The aspect of the actor's craft that exploits an actor's ability to think and feel as the fictional character. (7-107)
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| objective | A term in the Stanislavsky System of acting that describes what a character wants. (7-104)
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| obstacle | A term in the Stanislavsky System of acting that describes what the character must overcome to achieve the objective. (7-104)
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| photo/résumé | An 8x10 picture of an actor with a list of credits on the back, used by the actor when seeking a job. (7-115)
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| producer | The businessperson (or venture capitalist) who heads the business aspects of a commercial production. (7-115)
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| reader | An actor hired to read all the other lines in a scene during an actor's audition. (7-117)
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| role | The entirety of a character's part in a play. (7-104)
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| screen test | An audition for a film or TV role. (7-114)
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| self | The actor's body, voice, and imagination; the actor's instrument. (7-105)
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| sides | Selected pages of a script, used for an audition. (7-116)
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| stage directions | The playwright's written instructions. (7-101)
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| Stanislavsky System | The organized method that actors use to analyze and create a character; invented by the Russian Constantine Stanislavsky. (7-104)
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| super objective | A term in the Stanislavsky System of acting that describes the main objective of a character in a play. (7-104)
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| text | The playwright's script, particularly as a source of the actor's performance. (7-101)
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| training | Formal instruction in the art and craft of acting that is offered in universities and professional schools. (7-112)
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| unit | A term in the Stanislavsky System of acting that describes a short sequence of a character's role in which a single objective is introduced and achieved. (7-104)
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| walk-on | A slang term for a nonspeaking or small role in a play; sometimes called a "spear carrier." (7-112)
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