Read Aloud: Hear Your Screenplay Performed with AI Voices

Read Aloud turns your screenplay into a live table read. Each character speaks in a distinct AI voice, and a narrator reads scene headings and action lines, so you can hear how your script sounds without assembling a cast.

What Is Read Aloud

Read Aloud uses AI text-to-speech to narrate your entire screenplay out loud. It automatically detects every character in your script and lets you assign each one a unique voice. Scene headings and action lines are read by a separate narrator voice, which says INT. and EXT. as "interior" and "exterior" the way a reader at a table read would, rather than spelling them out. Parentheticals and transitions are skipped, keeping the focus on dialogue and story.

Hearing your screenplay performed is one of the most effective ways to catch awkward phrasing, unnatural dialogue, and pacing issues that are easy to miss when reading silently.

Read Aloud needs a free account. Every account comes with about three minutes of reading to try it on your own scenes. That allowance does not reset; once it is used, Read Aloud is part of Pro, which reads whole scripts with every voice, as often as you like. The panel shows how much free reading is left before you press Start.

How to Use Read Aloud

Click the Read button in the editor toolbar at the top of the screen. This opens the Read Aloud panel where you can assign voices, adjust speed, and start playback.

Once you have configured your voices, click Start Reading. Audio begins playing within a few seconds as the first segment is generated. Subsequent segments are pre-loaded in the background so there is minimal delay between them.

Assigning Voices

The Read Aloud panel lists every character detected in your screenplay, along with a Narrator row for scene headings and action lines. Each has a dropdown where you can choose from ten distinct AI voices.

Voices are automatically assigned when you first open the panel, distributing different voices across your characters. You can change any assignment before or between readings.

Available Voices

EnsembleWriter offers thirteen voices, each with a different tone and character. Marin and Cedar are the most natural, so new casts start with them:

• Cedar: rich and grounded (default narrator)
• Marin: natural and warm (first character voice)
• Alloy: neutral and balanced
• Ash: warm and conversational
• Ballad: smooth and expressive
• Coral: clear and bright
• Echo: calm and measured
• Fable: animated and engaging
• Nova: friendly and upbeat
• Onyx: deep and authoritative
• Sage: thoughtful and composed
• Shimmer: light and energetic
• Verse: versatile and dramatic

Playback Controls

During playback the panel shows the current speaker, the text being read, and a progress bar. Four controls are available:

• Play / Pause — Pause the current segment and resume from where it stopped.
• Stop — End playback and return to the voice assignment screen.
• Skip Forward — Jump to the next segment.
• Skip Backward — Jump to the previous segment.

Starting from Cursor

Read Aloud begins playback from your current cursor position in the editor, not from the beginning of the script. Place your cursor at the scene or dialogue you want to hear, then click Start Reading.

To listen from the very beginning, move your cursor to the top of the screenplay before starting.

Adjusting Speed

Use the speed slider in the Read Aloud panel to control how fast the voices speak. The range is 0.5x (half speed) to 2.0x (double speed), with 1.0x as the default. Slower speeds can help you focus on individual lines, while faster speeds are useful for a quick pass through longer scripts.