The callback table at the regional theatre audition is a stack of headshots, face up, with resumes stapled to the back. Somewhere in the pile there is one printed on regular letter paper and never trimmed, so half an inch of white sticks out past the photo on every side. The director notices it before she reads a single credit. It is not disqualifying. It is just the first thing anyone learns about that actor, which is not a great first impression when you're trying to stand out (but not in that way!).
An acting resume is a small document with a lot of unwritten rules, and most of them exist because someone at a table has to read 40 of these in an afternoon. Let's break it all down for you. Here is the whole set, start to finish, including the part about scissors.
What's in here
- What exactly is included in an acting resume,
- What goes at the top, including the union line most guides get wrong now
- How to write a theatre credit, an ensemble credit, and an understudy credit
- The formatting numbers: page, margins, fonts, sizes
- How to print it, trim it to 8 × 10, and staple it to a headshot the way casting expects
What exactly is in an acting resume?
An acting resume is a one-page list of your performance credits, training, and special skills, stapled to the back of your 8 × 10 headshot. It is grouped by medium rather than by date, leads with your strongest work instead of your newest, and carries only the personal details casting needs.
Those details are your name, how to reach you, your union status, and your height, and that short list is the whole design. A casting director or a community theatre director looks at the photo, flips it over, and asks two questions: who has hired this person, and for what? Everything on the page should answer one of those two questions or get out of the way.
How is an acting resume different from a job resume?
Almost every rule a career center teaches about resumes is wrong for this one. The general resume sites that rank at the top of a search for "acting resume" will tell you to use reverse-chronological order and open with a summary paragraph. Please don't. Here is what changes.
| A job resume has | An acting resume has |
|---|---|
| Dates on everything | No dates at all. Casting wants the role, the production, and the director. Dates read as inexperience and invite people to do arithmetic about your age. |
| Newest job first | Strongest credit first, inside each section. A lead at a regional theater outranks last month's ensemble track. |
| A home address | A phone number and an email. This page ends up in piles on tables and on websites; nobody needs to know where you sleep. |
| A summary or objective | Nothing. The credits are the summary. |
| Whatever length it takes | One page, trimmed to 8 × 10. There is no second page; the headshot is the second page. |
| No photo, ever | A photo is the front of the document. |
What goes at the top of an acting resume?
Five things, in this order: your name, your union status, how to reach you, who represents you if anyone does, and a single line of physical description. The whole block is centered and takes about an inch and a half of the page.
Your name is the largest thing on the page, large enough to read from across a table. It has to match the name on your headshot exactly, so if you have added a middle name or dropped a married one, change both.
Union status goes directly under your name, whatever it is. Non-union is not a confession; it is information a director needs before offering you a contract. What ends a conversation is a line that turns out not to be true. There are only four things you can truthfully write here:
| Write | When |
|---|---|
| AEA | You are a member of Actors' Equity Association, the stage actors' union |
| SAG-AFTRA | You are a member of the on-camera and voice union |
| SAG-AFTRA Eligible | You have done enough union work to join, and haven't yet |
| Non-union | None of the above. Most people reading this post, and that is fine |
If you have an older resume that says EMC or Equity Membership Candidate, take it off. Equity closed that program to new candidates in 2023 and stopped recognizing the status entirely in May 2026, when its Open Access membership policy replaced it. A resume still carrying EMC tells a stage manager you have not updated it in a while.
Nadia's header block. Five lines, an inch and a half, and everything a director needs before the credits.
Contact is a phone number and an email on one line. If you have an agent or manager, their agency, city, and phone go on the next line; some represented actors list only the agent, which is fine as long as the agent actually answers. Directors at the community level will usually call you directly, so I keep both.
The stats line is where guides disagree, so here is where the current practice has landed. Height, always: a director building a stage picture needs to know it, and some roles have a height requirement written in. Hair and eye color are optional; the headshot shows them, but the words cost four letters each and help when the photo is a year old. Weight used to be standard and is now widely left off, and I leave it off. Never your age, your birthday, or an age range. Casting decides what age you read the moment you walk in, and a number on the page only makes that harder.
If you sing, add your voice type and range to that same line, in notes: Mezzo-soprano, belt to E5. A voice type without notes ("alto") is fine for a non-singer who gets cast in musicals anyway.
How do you list theatre credits?
Every stage credit is four pieces of information in four columns, in this order: the show, the role, the company, the director. Nothing else on the line. Inside the section, put your strongest credit at the top and let the rest fall in whatever order makes the page look best.
Show, role, company, director. Nothing else on the line.
Strongest first, not newest.
Show titles go in capitals or small caps so the eye can scan the left column. The role goes in the second column, and for theatre it is the character's name, because directors know the plays and a name tells them the size of the part. The company is the theatre or producing organization. The director's name goes last, usually as dir. Marcus Delaney, and it is there because casting will call them. Your resume is also your reference list. If you do not know a director well or the show went badly, leave that credit off rather than hand out a phone number that will not help you.
A few credits do not fit the four columns neatly, and this is where community and school actors get stuck because no guide tells them what to write:
| You were | Write in the role column |
|---|---|
| In the ensemble with no lines | Ensemble |
| In the ensemble with a solo line or a named bit | Ft. Ensemble (featured ensemble), or the bit's name if it has one: Ft. Ensemble / Nurse |
| An understudy who did not go on | u/s Beatrice |
| An understudy who went on | Beatrice (u/s, performed) |
| Dance captain on top of your track | Add / DC after the role |
| In a staged reading or workshop | The role, with (reading) after the company name |
School and community productions are real credits. Keep them as long as they are your strongest, and let them fall off the bottom as better ones arrive. Once you are a few years out of high school, the high-school shows go. Background or extra work never goes on at all; it is not a credit, and listing it says more than leaving it off would.
Beatrice at Cedar Valley, first, because it is the best credit on the page and not because it was the most recent.
What about film, TV, and commercials?
On-camera credits keep the same columns with one swap: the middle column is your billing, not your character's name. A casting director has not seen the short film you did in Asheville, so "Dana" means nothing, but Supporting tells them what someone else already trusted you with.
The ladder, from the top: Lead, Supporting, Principal (a speaking role in a commercial or industrial), and for television, Series Regular, Recurring, Guest Star, Co-Star. Do not inflate a billing, and do not shrink one either. If the film was about your character, you were the lead.
Two habits from the on-camera world worth borrowing. First, do not label a credit as a student film or a short film in the company column; name the production company or the school's film program and let the credit stand. Flagging it as a student project only advertises the thing you are trying not to advertise. Second, commercials get one line and no list: Conflicts available upon request. A "conflict" is a brand you have advertised for, which stops you from advertising for a competitor, and advertisers want to ask about it privately rather than read it on a page that gets passed around.
Order your sections by where you audition. Theatre actors put THEATRE first, then FILM & INDUSTRIAL, then the commercial line. Name the on-camera section for the work you have: FILM & INDUSTRIAL if it is corporate videos and a short, FILM & TELEVISION once there is a network credit on it. An actor who mostly works on camera flips the order. If you genuinely do both, keep two versions of the same file with the sections swapped; the credits do not change, only the order.
How do you write the training and special skills sections?
Training is what a director reads when the credits are thin, so it is not a footnote. List the discipline first, then the teacher, then the school or program: Meisner Technique, two-year — Ruth Vance, The Barn Studio. A degree goes here too, as BA Theatre, Performance — Warren Wilson College. Order by how much of it you have done, not by date. One-day workshops and recorded classes usually do not earn a line; a summer intensive, a certification, or ongoing private study does.
Special skills is the section most likely to get you a job you did not audition for, and the section most likely to embarrass you. The test for every entry is simple: would you be glad to be asked to do it in the room, right now, with no warning? Dialects you can hold for two hours. Instruments you can play on stage, with a note about reading. Stage combat with the certification named, because SAFD unarmed, Recommended Pass is checkable and stage combat is not. Languages with a level. Sports, licenses, and anything odd enough to be remembered, as long as it is true. A valid driver's license is standard on the last line and gets more people cast in industrials than you would think.
How do you format the page? Step-by-step
First, make sure it is black ink on white paper, one standard font, and nothing on the page that belongs to anyone but you. A resume with a template company's banner on it looks like a template. Here is how to build this in a Google Doc from a blank page:
1. Page setup. Letter size, portrait. Margins 0.625" top, 1.5" bottom, 0.625" left, and 1.125" right. The right and bottom margins are bigger on purpose: the page is 8.5 × 11 and it will be trimmed to 8 × 10 with two cuts, half an inch off the right edge and an inch off the bottom, so the extra margin on those two sides is the strip you remove. Set it this way and the header stays centered on the page you keep, and nothing you type can land in the cut. More on that below.
2. Font. One serif or one sans, and only one. Georgia, Garamond, Arial, and Times all read fine on a table under bad light. Name at 24–28 pt bold, centered. Section headings at 10–11 pt bold, in capitals. Everything else at 10 pt. If it does not fit on one page at 10 pt, cut a credit, not the point size.
3. Header block. Name, union line, contact line, agency line, stats line, each on its own line, all centered. Use a mid-dot ( · ) between items on a line rather than commas; it scans faster.
4. Credit sections. Use a table with four columns and no borders, one row per credit, and hide the gridlines. Tabs work too but drift the moment a title is long. Left-align every column. Column widths roughly 32% show, 20% role, 28% company, 20% director. Set the row height to nothing extra; the table should look like typed lines, not a spreadsheet.
5. Section headings. THEATRE, FILM & INDUSTRIAL, COMMERCIAL, TRAINING, SPECIAL SKILLS, in capitals, with a little space above each one and none below. Skip any section you have nothing for. An empty heading is worse than a missing one.
6. Special skills. Prose, not a list. One paragraph, with the categories in bold and separated by periods: Dialects: … Combat: … It holds far more on one page than bullets do.
7. The one-page test. Print preview. If a second page appears, the fix is content, never a smaller font or thinner margins. Drop the weakest credit or trim the skills paragraph.
8. Export. File ▸ Download ▸ PDF for anything you send electronically, named with your full name: Nadia-Whitfield-Resume.pdf. Keep the Google Doc as the master, and re-export every time a show closes.
How do you print and attach it to a headshot?
Print on plain white paper at 100% scale, trim the sheet to 8 × 10, and staple it to the back of the headshot at all four corners with the flat side of each staple on the photo. That is the entire physical standard, and every part of it exists because casting offices handle these in stacks.
Paper. Ordinary white printer paper is correct. A slightly heavier sheet feels nicer and survives the stack better; glossy paper is wrong, and colored paper is wrong. Print from the PDF, not the Doc, and make sure the print dialog says 100% or Actual Size, not Fit to Page, or the margins move.
Trimming. A letter sheet is half an inch too wide and a full inch too tall for an 8 × 10 photo. With the margins above, it is two straight cuts: 0.5" off the right edge and 1" off the bottom. The top-left corner of the printed sheet is the corner you keep, so line the trimmed page up against the photo by that corner. Measure from the edges with a ruler and mark both lines in pencil first; the template prints a faint dashed line along each cut for exactly this. Use a paper trimmer if there is one within reach; a ruler and a craft knife work; scissors work if you draw the line first. Some guides tell you to line the resume up in one corner of the photo and trim two sides; that shifts a centered header a quarter inch to one side, so for this layout, measure instead.
Two cuts, four staples. The corner you keep is the one your name is nearest.
Stapling. Lay the headshot face down, lay the trimmed resume on top, face up, and line up all four edges. One staple in each corner, about a quarter inch in from the edges, positioned so the flat side of the staple sits on the photo and the folded prongs are on the resume side. When the director picks it up, they see a clean photo; when they flip it, they see the prongs, which nobody minds. Four corners rather than two because a resume that is stapled at the top only will fold back and catch on the pile. Never a paperclip, and never tape, and do not count on there being a stapler at the audition.
Printing on the back of the photo. Most photo labs will print your resume directly on the reverse of the headshot as one product. It looks tidy and it costs you every time a credit changes, because you reprint the photo. Some casting offices also prefer to file the two separately. For an actor whose resume is still moving, a stapled sheet is the better deal.
How many to bring. Two paired copies to every in-person audition, more if the notice asks. Keep a few pre-stapled in a stiff folder in the car; the paper is cheap and the photo is not, so if the resume changes, pull the four staples and swap the sheet.
The digital version. Most submissions now happen through casting sites, and those either give you fields to type your credits into or ask for the PDF. Either way the content is identical to the printed page, which is why the Google Doc is the master. Name the PDF with your full name, keep it to one page, and never send a photo of a printed resume.
What if you're building one for a student?
A resume for a performer under 18 follows the same page but changes the top: the contact line names a parent, guardian, or teacher, the union line usually comes off, and the stats line carries an age range played rather than a height alone. What it never carries is the student's own phone number, email, home address, or date of birth, and if you are building these for a whole cast, resist adding those fields back for convenience. The youth version has enough of its own rules that it gets its own post; for now, use the adult page above with those changes made.
The other page you'll be asked for
The program bio is a different document with a different job. A quick formula for writing an actor bio covers that one.
Common questions
I have almost no credits. What do I put on it?
Training, and then whatever performance you have done, including school shows, readings, and church, camp, or community theater productions. A director reading a thin resume looks at who taught you. Keep the sections you can fill, delete the ones you cannot, and let the special skills paragraph do some work. Three real credits and an honest training list beat a padded page every time.
Should I put my address or my age on it?
Neither. A phone and an email are the whole contact line for an adult. Age, birthday, and age range all come off; the room decides what age you read.
How often do I update it?
Every time a show closes, in the Google Doc, then re-export the PDF. If you print, pull the staples on your stapled copies and swap the sheet rather than reprinting the photo. A headshot that looks current paired with a resume that stops two shows ago sends a mixed message.
Can I list a show I was cut from, or one I turned down?
No. A credit is a production you performed in, or understudied. Casting calls directors, and a credit that does not check out costs more than the empty line would have.
Do I need a separate resume for musicals?
Usually the same page with the vocal range on the stats line and the musical credits sorted to the top of the THEATRE section. If you work in both plays and musicals and the page is getting crowded, keep two versions of the file with the credits reordered, not two different resumes.
The pile on the callback table gets read fast. The director flips one over, sees a name she recognizes in the fourth column, and says to the stage manager, "Oh, she worked with Marcus. Call her back."
Try this
Open your current resume, or a blank Doc, and write your union line first, before anything else. If the honest answer is Non-union, type that. Then list every show you have done on a scratch page and circle the three you would most want a director to call about.
Those three go at the top of the THEATRE section, in that order. The rest of the page is arithmetic.
If you would rather start from a page that already has the margins, the columns, and the trim built in, the Acting Resume Template is the same page as a blank, filled in for a non-union actor and for a union one, and in a version for students.
After the resume is right
The page gets you in the room; four reasons you didn't get the part is about what happens once you are in it.
More paperwork for the production, not just the actor: the full Theaterish template library.
The Acting Resume Template
A Google Doc in the format casting expects, with the margins set for the 8 × 10 trim and the four credit columns already built. Comes blank and filled in, non-union, union, and student.
- 5 files
- Google Docs
- Trims to 8 × 10
- Adult & youth versions
$25.00$5.00 on sale · Google Docs · make a copy and keep it