Listens again to leading actor's long silence in trial performances (10)
I believe the answer is:
rehearsals
'trial performances' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'listens again to leading actor's long silence in' is the wordplay.
'listens' becomes 'hears' (I've seen this before).
'again' becomes 're' (prefix meaning 'again').
'to leading' indicates taking the first letters (the leading letter of the word).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
The initial letters of 'actors long silence' is 'als'.
're'+'als'='reals'
'hears' going into 'reals' is 'REHEARSALS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for rehearsals that I've seen is " Practice sessions".)