Monologue or Cold Reading?

Question:Which do you, personally, prefer when auditioning?
And if you have any reasons for your preference or stories to go along with it - I'd love to hear them.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Which do you, personally, prefer when auditioning?
And if you have any reasons for your preference or stories to go along with it - I'd love to hear them.

I prefer cold readings.

With monologues, every theatre company always seems to want something different - different length, different style, etc. So either you have to scramble to adjust your current monologue(s), find something new to fit the style and length, find something new that fits the character you want, or just have several monologues ready to go at any given time - and I don't mean 3 or 4 - to have the various genres, I mean:

1 minute classical comic
1:30 minute classical comic
2 minute classical comic

1 minute classical serious
1:30 minute classical serious
2 minute classical serious

1 minute contemporary comic
1:30 minute contemporary comic
2 minute contemporary comic

1 minute contemporary serious
1:30 minute contemporary serious
2 minute contemporary serious

That's 12 right there - and that's not even putting into consideration whether the character may be right for the specific audition. And you're never really sure what the director may be looking for.

With monologues, you're also always trying to figure out the best monologue for that particular audition - show and character. It's also so easy to second-guess your choices and wonder if you gave the director enough to picture you in one of the roles for their show.

To me, cold readings just make more sense. It seems much more helpful to the auditors to see everyone play the same roles. The actors will, more or less, be on an even playing field for the audition. They'll all be working from the same sides - and won't have necessarily seen the script before the audition. At least for film, it's unlikely the actors will have had access to the script longer than the other actors. And for plays, well, it will separate the actors who have done their homework and read the play prior to the audition from the actors who didn't.

I always feel like I can be freer, have more fun, and show that I can play the role they're looking to cast me for when I get to cold read. After all, I'm playing the character - not just some character in my monologue who may or may not be anything like the role I'm after.

***EDIT***

I agree with the first person who answered, that a monologue can show what an actor can to when they have prepared. And that's good, but I have seen actors do great monologues and then it turns out that that is the only thing they're good at.

I still think that cold readings are better for everyone all around. If they want to see monologues, it makes sense to use those as a way to screen the actors and then call back the best for cold readings.

Here's the scoop really...

Auditioning with monologues is good, because preparation is a huge factor, and so it tells the director that if you are given time, you will do exceptional work, if your monologue is exceptional that is. However, cold reading tells a lot about an actor's instinct and such. I prefer it just because it separates the men from the boys.

Once I auditioned for a conservatory in the Bay Area in California, and we had to prepare a monologue, and I completely planked during the middle of it just because I thought it wasn't going very well, and so I went off on a complete tangent during it about how the character had a date with Angelina Jolie. It was pretty well done, and I got in on my improved monologue. Haha

Oh, definitely cold readings. With a monologue, I always feel like a heel. I tend to choose something overly-dramatic.

For my first professional audition, I was doing a mono. from "The Shadow Box" (tip: never do any mono. from this play - they're soooo overdone.), and spit on the casting director's glasses.

Yeech. If I have to do one, I go with comedy.