Mark Ravenhill Begs: Playwrights, Don’t Read Aloud

“The skill of the playwright is that they can hear dialogue in their head and write it down. When they come to speak it aloud, they rarely do their own work justice. I’m sure audiences feel that somehow they are getting the authentic voice of the writer. But I would argue that the voice of the text is a very different thing from the way the author sounds: it’s best left to actors to track down and present it.”