From zero to your first rehearsal

Install the app (Android)

Download PlayHearsal — an .apk file: open it from the download notification and install it. The first time you open it, a short demo scene is already waiting, in English, German, French or Romanian: it shows you how a rehearsal works while you do one. You pick plays from the repertoire.

• Your phone will ask whether to allow installing from this source — tap Allow, then Install.
• Got a link to a play? Once the app is installed, tap the link again: the play opens straight in PlayHearsal. Or pick one from the shelf.
• Got an iPhone? See the iOS install page — it takes one extra step.

Why the warning? PlayHearsal installs directly, not from the Play Store, and Android is cautious with any app that comes from outside the store. It only asks once.

Receive the play

The play travels as a single .playhearsal file, voices included. It reaches you in three ways:

• The play's link (on WhatsApp, for example): tap it, and PlayHearsal opens and downloads the play by itself. No app yet? Install it (step 1), then tap the link again. The files are big — stay on Wi-Fi.
• The shelf on this site: open the play's page and tap “Open in PlayHearsal”.
• A file sent directly: tap it in the chat and choose to open it with PlayHearsal.

If a file downloads instead of the app opening, open it from the download notification: an .apk is the app, an .oncue is the play — open that one with PlayHearsal.

Open the play and pick your role

The first screen shows your plays. Tap the play, then find your character in the cast and mute them: their synthetic voice goes silent, and their lines stay yours, spoken out loud.

You can mute as many characters as you like — handy when two of you rehearse a scene and each speaks their own part.

Rehearse

Pick the act or scene you want to start from and hit play. The app speaks the others' lines; on yours, you're the one on stage.

• Skip a line forward or back with the buttons next to play — just like with music.
• Pause is yours anytime; when you come back, you carry on exactly where you left off.

Turn on the prompter

With the prompter on, you never touch the phone at all: the app listens while you speak your line, waits for you to finish it — dramatic pauses included — and starts the next line by itself.

• If you get stuck, it whispers the start of your line, like a real prompter.
• It works with the screen off or with the phone in your pocket.

Privacy: the prompter uses your phone's speech recognition — on the device if you have the language pack installed, otherwise through the system service (Apple or Google). PlayHearsal has no account and never sends recordings; it asks for your consent before the first use.

Fix a line

A voice sounds wrong, or you want your own delivery? Select the line and record over it: you can replace it, add a take before or after it, or at the end of the scene. Your recording goes into the play and is heard at the next rehearsal.

Take the play with you or pass it on

• Listen to it like an audiobook: start a rehearsal with nobody muted and the play runs on its own — in the car, on headphones, on a walk.
• .playhearsal sharing: send the whole play — text, voices, corrections — to a castmate, in a single file.