Able to appear in a somewhat taut dramatic scene (7)
I believe the answer is:
tableau
'dramatic scene' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'able to appear in a somewhat taut' is the wordplay.
'to appear in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a somewhat' means to remove the last letter (some but not all of the word).
'taut' with its last letter taken off is 'tau'.
'able' inserted inside 'tau' is 'TABLEAU'.
(Other definitions for tableau that I've seen before include "Pageant" , "picture that's striking" , "Motionless figures representing a story" , "Scene, representation" , "Group of models representing a scene" .)