au·di·tion (ô-dish-en)

While tooling about online this week I found a link to a local theatre's Producer's Manual. Among comprehensive instructions and standardized forms was a copy of that theatre's audition sheet. For those in a more corporate world, this is akin to a job application; auditionees fill in their vital information and relative willingness to change their appearance then return the paper to the auditor with their headshot and resume before proceeding to the interview portion of the process. It's usually a pretty mundane piece of business. But at the bottom of this sheet there was a definition. One almost worthy of Ambrose Bierce:

Audition: The act of putting oneself under extreme stress while satisfying the sadistic intentions of others.

Sounds about right.