Follow the citation until it stops
Our research proposed opening a whole section with a population fact, and flagged in its own notes that the figure was second-hand and should be re-checked. We re-checked it. It does not stand up.
The claim is that around a third of performing arts practitioners are dyslexic, against about ten per cent of the general population. It is repeated everywhere, and it is not a finding.
Their piece on acting with dyslexia gives the ten per cent general figure, then says the number “leaps dramatically to around a third within the performing arts.” That phrase is a link.
Not to a study. To a resource page on a performing arts mental health site, which is where the trail is supposed to end.
Its wording is that “some drama schools say that up to 30% of their students are dyslexic.” No school is named. No survey, no sample, no year.
It is a joint project of a musicians’ and performers’ health charity, the performers’ union, the trade paper and Spotlight. So the citation returns to where it started.
The argument underneath it survives without the statistic, and is arguably stronger. The acting industry has argued about résumé typography for decades without consulting the accessibility research at all. That is true whether the figure is a third or a tenth, and the research turns out to answer three questions this page had marked as unanswerable.
The specification, in three tiers
This page has always sorted its advice by how well sourced it is rather than by topic. There is now a middle tier: things nobody in acting says, which somebody outside acting has actually established.
The block capitals problem, and a dead edition
Our research handed us a sharp quote about capital letters. It is real. It is also from a version of the guide that was rewritten in 2018.
The line we were going to print is “avoid text in block capitals: this is much harder to read.” It appears word for word in the 2014 edition and nowhere in the current one.
What the guide said in 2014
The wordingAvoid block capitals, and avoid capitals mid-line, where they may be read as single letters.
StatusSuperseded. Both sentences are gone from the live guide.
What it says now
The wordingAvoid all capitals for continuous text, because lower case is easier to read.
What changedThe claim narrowed. It is now explicitly about continuous text rather than about capitals generally.
What that does to our own layout
The old readingOur template breaks the rule everywhere, since it capitalises every title and heading.
The current readingIt probably does not. A production title is a short string, not continuous text, and the narrowed wording lets the convention stand.
Paper, and the print shop was half right
This page used to dismiss paper advice as content written by people who sell paper. That judgement was right about the source and wrong about one conclusion.
The accessibility guidance is specific and it is not a sales pitch. Use matt paper rather than gloss, and paper thick enough to prevent the other side showing through. Show-through is a legibility problem, not an upsell.
Weight matters for the wrong reason to the one you were given. Not to feel expensive. So that the back of the page does not print through the front.
Matt, not gloss — which is the opposite of headshot printing. Worth knowing, because the two documents get stapled together and photographic paper is glossy.
So printing your résumé on the back of your headshot has a second strike against it. It already turns a free update into a paid reprint. It also puts the text on the shiniest surface available.
One recommendation from the same guide we are not taking. It suggests cream or soft pastel stock rather than white, because white can dazzle. On a casting résumé that would read as eccentric, and the advice is aimed at sustained reading rather than a page somebody glances at. We are saying no to it and telling you we did, rather than quietly leaving it out.
There is no tracking system. There is a database.
The strongest section on this page said there is no applicant tracking system between an actor and a casting director. That holds. It needs one honest addition.
Corporate hiring software parses a document, scores it for keywords and ranks you against other applicants before a person sees it. Nothing like that sits between your résumé and a casting director. Advice to optimise an acting résumé for it is selling you a solution to a problem you do not have.
And the wider pattern is worth naming, because it explains almost every bad résumé article you will read. The problem with generic careers advice is not that it is wrong about acting. It is that it is correct about a different document. References, tailoring per application, keyword density: all sensible for a job application, all misapplied here.
The reading order nobody has asked about
Our research went looking for guidance on how a submitted PDF is read by assistive technology, found none aimed at this industry, and said we would be the first to ask. That is still true.
Here is the mechanism, and it is not obvious. A PDF’s reading order is not the order things appear on the page. It comes from a hidden structure layer, and if that layer is absent the text comes out in the order it was laid down.
Columns made with tab stops are not columns to a computer. They are one flat stream of text with spacing instructions in it.
So the link between a production, a role and a director is invisible. A screen reader has nothing telling it those three things belong to the same line.
Build the block as a real table with a header row instead, and export with document structure tags switched on. That is the entire fix and it changes nothing visually.
We checked whether anybody in casting has published anything on this. Not Spotlight, not Backstage, not the submission platforms, not the unions, not the drama schools. There is generic career-service material aimed at corporate applicants and nothing at all aimed here. That absence is genuine and, unlike the statistic at the top of this page, we can show our working on it.
When it will not fit
The instinct is to shrink the type. It is the wrong move and now there is a floor underneath it rather than just an opinion.
The order of operations does not change. Cut credits. Do not shrink the type. Take out the weakest lines, group what is left, and use the standing convention that solves this without lying.
Grading the sources
The research behind this page found something genuinely valuable and quoted it from a version that no longer exists. Both of those things are true at once.
Two limits we are stating rather than hiding. The accessibility guide is British, and the American standards bodies are simply less specific rather than contradictory — none of them gives a point size at all. And none of this is a casting-side view. No casting office anywhere has published a preference on any of it, which is the whole reason this page had to go outside the industry to find a number.
Where we differ from the standard account
How big should your name be?
Commonly saidBigger. No number, because nobody in acting gives one.
What we foundAt least twenty per cent larger than the body text. A ratio, from a current published guide.
Are a third of actors dyslexic?
Commonly saidYes, and it is usually credited to Spotlight.
What we foundSpotlight is repeating a partner site, which credits unnamed drama schools. Nobody has counted.
Does paper stock matter?
Commonly saidHeavy stock looks professional. Sold by people who sell paper.
What we foundIt matters for show-through, and matt beats gloss. A legibility reason, not a prestige one.
Should you optimise for applicant tracking?
Commonly saidYes, load it with keywords.
What we foundThere is no such system here. There is a searchable database, and it searches the platform’s fields, not your document.
What margins?
Commonly saidOne inch, confidently.
What we foundNo acting source has ever specified one. That advice is about a corporate CV.
Do you have to trim to eight by ten?
Commonly saidYes, always, precisely.
What we foundDocumented in detail by the trade press and demanded by no casting director on record.
Will a dyslexia-specific font help?
Commonly saidIncreasingly recommended as an accessibility win.
What we foundNot supported. Plain sans serif is. The special fonts test no better than ordinary ones.
Do one thing tonight. Open your résumé and check two numbers: whether the body text is at least twelve point, and whether your name is at least a fifth bigger than it. Those are the only two figures on this whole page that come from a current published source, and getting them right takes about a minute.