A Girl Named Eve

As a playwright, I'm sometimes asked to read for characters during my play-writing classes or writing groups, and even at auditions to read with actors. It's fun and I've always been fascinated with how a seasoned actor can bring words to life even when they haven't memorized the lines and are still reading from a script. They somehow kept pace with the script while the other actor was reading and their faces weren't buried in the script. So, I wanted to learn the techniques actors use for doing a successful cold read. I did a little searching and found a useful YouTube video by thehellerapproach on cold reading . For those of you not familiar with acting, a cold read is an impromptu reading of part of a script. You are asked to read something and you are only given a few minutes. A cold reading is not when you are given the script the night before the audition since a dedicated actor would have studied and memorized the script by then. Sometimes in auditions,