Commanding individual with important role to play (7,3)
I believe the answer is:
leading man
'commanding individual with important role' is the definition.
'leading man' can be an answer for 'role' (thesaurus). I am not sure about the 'commanding individual with important' bit.
'play' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'play' could be 'lead' (lead is a kind of play) and 'lead' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for leading man that I've seen before include "Protagonist" , "Star" , "Principal actor" , "top fellow on stage" , "Chief actor" .)