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:
“While yet it is cold January, and snow and ice are thick and solid, the prudent landlord comes from the village to get ice to cool his summer drink; impressively, even pathetically, wise, to foresee the heat and thirst of July now in January,—wearing a thick coat and mittens! when so many things are not provided for. It may be that he lays up no treasures in this world which will cool his summer drink in the next.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)