Mobile app delivers real-time captions for live theater performances

The Captioning Studio has released a new app that delivers real-time theater captioning on smartphone and tablet devices.

Captions have long been available for television and movies, but live theater has traditionally been trickier to understand for those with hearing loss or other impairments. That’s where Australian The Captioning Studio comes in, with a new app that delivers real-time theater captioning on smartphone and tablet devices. Launched earlier this year, The Captioning Studio’s new, patented GoTheatrical app gives users a way to receive captions for selected live theater performances, beginning with Andrew McKinnon’s production of ‘Dickens’ Women’ at Canberra’s The Playhouse in February. To use the app, theatergoers simply register to access the list of upcoming events and select the performance they’re attending. Then, during a performance, actors’ lines appear on-screen as the actors speak them. Also included in GoTheatrical’s captioning are ad libs, asides, song lyrics, musical descriptions and other sound effects. The app is currently priced at USD 1.99 on Apple’s App Store. The video below explains the premise in further detail:

There are more than 4 million consumers with hearing loss in Australia alone, The Captioning Studio says, and that’s in addition to the countless theatergoers speaking a language other than English. How could your brand make live entertainment more accessible to a larger audience?