What is a “CD” as Related to Acting Auditions? (Showbiz Term of the Day)

I am starting a new series called “Showbiz Term of the Day.” Today’s showbiz term of the day is “CD.” Do you know what CD refers to when it is used related to Acting Auditions or Print Auditions?

I know I wondered what the term CD meant when I first heard it used when my daughter went on her first acting auditions. Acting terminology can be very confusing, especially when it comes to many of the acronyms that are often used.

You have probably heard “CD” used in several different ways I can think of right off the top of my head.

The most common uses of CD that come to mind are “Certificate of Deposit” and “Compact Disc.”

Neither of those is the term I am defining today. I am discussing CD in relation to acting auditions and show business.

So, “What is a CD as Related to Acting Auditions?”

The term CD here stands for Casting Director. A Casting Director is a person who holds acting auditions or modeling auditions to find actors or models for projects they are hired to cast.

The role of the Casting Director is to find actors (or models) to participate in a project, whether it be a film, tv show, commercial, print job, or any other project where actors or models are needed.

So if you are taking your child to acting auditions, the person your child will be seeing is the casting director. If you are sending your child’s headshot out to be considered for a role on a particular tv show or movie and to hopefully be called in for acting auditions, the person to send the headshot to is the CD or Casting Director for the project.

The casting director typically evaluates all the roles in the script for a project and then creates a breakdown for the project defining all those roles (see  “Who Gets the Breakdowns for Acting Auditions for Big Move and TV Roles?” for more information on breakdowns).

That breakdown is typically released through Breakdown Services to talent agencies. The talent agencies then submit actors (or models) that they feel are appropriate for the roles being cast.

The casting director or CD then receives submissions for the various roles, selects the individuals to invite to the auditions, and then schedules the actors for acting auditions (or models for modeling auditions).

The CD then conducts the auditions and selects a subset of the talent who auditioned to come for callbacks with producers, directors, and possibly other studio executives involved in the project.

The casting director advises but is not usually ultimately responsible for making the final decisions on who is cast for the various roles in a project.

For more information on this and many other topics related to show business, be sure to subscribe to Your Young Actor’s Newsletter. You’ll also get a free mini-course on Getting Started in Show Business.

To your success,

Debbie Sikkema