Cold reading is a term used by actors and other performers in theatre, television, film, and performance fields. A cold reading is a reading aloud from a script or other text without any rehearsal, practice or study in advance. It is also sometimes referred to as sight-reading.
Cold readings are employed frequently in actor auditions, to allow the employer or playwright to get a general idea of the actors' performing capabilities. They are also used for performance classes and by playwrights who need to hear their play read aloud by actors. Many actors and other performers and public speakers take classes and practice at length to improve the quality of their cold readings.
Cold reading can also be used in conjunction with improvisations to gauge a performer's ability to perform new works. A good dramatic cold reader is able to communicate with fluency and clarity and to project speech rhythms and rhymes well. He should also be able to bring out the intent, mood and characterization of a piece through appropriate articulation and body language.
Famous quotes containing the words cold and/or reading:
“Listen, Buster you and your quick-change acts aren’t going to hang orange blossoms all over me just because you feel the cold weather coming on. No thank you. I’ll go back where I can be honest without getting kicked around for it.”
—John Lee Mahin (1902–1984)
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)