Five concrete tips to get started with Mastering Theatre, format your text correctly and rehearse today — no subscription required.
What works, what's reserved for paid plans. No spin.
The app automatically recognizes characters and their lines, but only if the text follows a simple format. Here are the three errors that prevent import from working.
Character names must be in UPPERCASE (accents, hyphens, spaces allowed). "ALICE:" works, "Alice:" does not.
The separator is : (colon). A dash, a period, or nothing at all will not work.
"(exits)", "(aside)", "(silence)" and stage directions must be removed. The app would treat them as lines.
Act 1, scene 2. Alice (entering): You can't keep going like this, Victor. It's been three weeks. Victor.— I'm not avoiding anything. (silence) Alice — Really?
ACT I SCENE 2 ALICE: You can't keep going like this, Victor. It's been three weeks. VICTOR: I'm not avoiding anything. ALICE: Really?
NAME: line text.ACT I, SCENE 1, SCENE 2…Rather than rewriting everything by hand, copy the prompt below into a free conversational AI, paste your text at the end, and get back a clean script ready to paste into the app.
Once you get the result from the AI, copy it and paste it into the "Import" screen of the app via the 📋 button.
PDF file import is available in the free version. But not all PDFs are equal.
If you can select and copy text in the PDF with your mouse, import works directly. This is the case for PDFs generated from Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs, or exported from a website.
Tip: before importing, open the PDF and try to select a sentence. If you can, the app can too.
If the PDF is a scan or a photo (the text is actually an image), you need optical character recognition (OCR). OCR is reserved for the Pro plan.
Free workaround: take a photo of one page of your script, open ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude in your browser, attach the image and ask "Faithfully transcribe the text in this image". Get the text back, then apply tip #2 to format it. Longer, but 100% free.
The Memorization mode is fully available in the free version. It's probably the best use of the free plan.
After importing your scene, launch the Memorization mode instead of theatre mode. The app progressively hides the words of your lines to help you memorize the text.
In the free version you have 1 difficulty level (Pro and Premium offer 3 progressive levels). It's largely enough to learn a monologue, a short scene or a poem by heart.
No AI is called, no cloud voice, no credits: memorization mode works entirely locally on your phone.
Read carefully: the partner voice in free mode has an asymmetric usefulness.
You can record your own voice playing the lines of a character, and share that recording with a rehearsal partner.
But you cannot use it to rehearse yourself in the app: playback of a voice pack during a rehearsal is reserved for Pro and Premium plans.
The typical use: you record your lines to give the cue to a partner who rehearses on their side with your voice in their app (if they are on Pro or Premium). Useful in duos, less useful solo.
If you rehearse alone with the free version, don't waste time recording a voice pack — your app will use the native Android or iOS system voice for the partner.
If the free version suits you, great. If you want to unlock HD voices, advanced modes and AI, here's what paid plans add.