Learn lines with an app that waits for you
blablabla is an app for learning lines: you import the script, choose your part, and it speaks every other character's lines while it waits for yours. It is the best app for learning lines for a play or a film when you want the scene to wait for you instead of the other way round.
How learning lines works in blablabla
Import the script: a PDF, a Word file, Fountain, Final Draft, a photo of paper sides, or pasted text. blablabla works out who says what and lists the characters. Pick your part.
Then run the scene. Every other character speaks in a distinct voice. When your line comes, the app stops and waits. It moves on when you have said the line, not when a clock runs out. Take twenty seconds to find a word and it waits twenty seconds.
Start in Listen to hear the whole scene, your lines included. Move to Practice when you want to say them out loud, with as much or as little of your own line on screen as you need.
Learn lines for a play, scene by scene
A play arrives as a whole script, not as sides. Import the full script and blablabla splits it into scenes and keeps them together as a project. Open the scene rehearsals are on this week and leave the rest for later.
Learn the cues, not only your lines. Half of what you need to know is the sentence that triggers yours. With the other parts spoken aloud, every pass drills the join between their last word and your first, which is the join that breaks in the room.
Run a scene as often as you like. The partner in the app does not count the passes.
Learn lines for a film or a selftape
Sides come in the night before. Import the PDF, pick your part, and run it with the other character spoken. A recording of the other lines plays at one speed and you fit yourself around it. blablabla stops on your cue and stays stopped, so the timing is yours from the first pass.
When the lines are in, switch to Selftape mode. It records video while the reader speaks off camera, with a teleprompter for your own lines that follows the scene rather than scrolling at a set speed. Retakes are unlimited.
Hide your lines a little at a time
A dial sets how much of your own line you can see: the full text, a hint, the first letters of each word, or nothing. Change it mid-scene without restarting.
A useful order is full text on the first pass, first letters once the shape of the scene is there, and off when you think you are off book. If a line goes, turn the dial back up for one pass and down again.
The first-letters setting is the old first-letter drill from the page, with the cue spoken to you instead of read.
Learn lines in another language
Rehearse in the language the script is written in. blablabla detects the language of the scene and matches the voices and the speech recognition to it, so a Danish play, a German film, or a Spanish scene for a bilingual audition is read the way it was written.
Once the audio is cached, everything plays offline. The train, the green room, and the corridor outside the audition all work.
Questions actors ask
Is there an app to help learn lines for a play?
Yes. blablabla imports the whole script, splits it into scenes, and speaks every character except yours. It waits on your cue for as long as you need, so you can learn a play scene by scene without a partner.
Can I learn my lines without a partner?
Yes. The app reads the other parts in distinct voices and stops when your line comes. Say it, and it moves on. As you get off book, turn your own line down to first letters or off.
Does the app work offline?
Yes, once the audio has been generated. After that the scene plays from your phone with no connection, on iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Can it read lines in Danish, German, Spanish, or another language?
Yes. blablabla detects the language of the scene and matches the voices and the speech recognition to it. You rehearse in whatever language the script is in.
Is the app free?
There is a free tier, and Pro is a subscription for actors who rehearse a lot. The free practice scenes on this site let you try it before you import your own script.
Learn your next scene with a partner that waits
Import a script, pick your part, and start on the free tier. iPhone, iPad, and Android.