What is a "cold reading"?

Question

for acting, what is a cold reading at an audition

Answer 1

A reading by you of material that you have not read or prepared in advance, in other words you don't get to "warm up" by reading and thinking about it in advance.

Answer 2

What ever one else has said: you are going at it blind, no time to prepare. This is hard to do however, you can practice for this sort of thing. How? Read the want ads outloud! Hell, read the obits out loud too for that matter.
Seriously, read them out loud with different emotions, different timings. Read them in a conversational tone, in a news casters tone. Go wild.

The most important part of this acting drill is to get you used to being able to read and think outloud at the same time. It helps, it really does.

Break legs!

Answer 3

A cold reading is where you have never actually read the scene and the director or whomever is auditioning you hands you the script and tells you to read it.

You go up and read it as best you can with whomever is audtioning with you.

Answer 4

actually you get 2 minutes to look at it usually and then they say time is up and then you have to read what they handed you....be ready...usually when i know i am going to audition for something i have my mom print stuff out like scenes from a movie or a play and then i have her hand it to me give me 2 minutes and then read it for her...once i even had to do tongue twisters for a cold reading

Answer 5

People are going to ask you to say something that you have not had time to think about in order to gage your abilities to handle a quick thought process, an ability to improvise without the giving of directions of the other party.

Answer 6

They had you something and say "Read this" and you have to act it out without preparing or rehearsing