A synchronized captioning system and methods for synchronized captioning of scripted live performances are disclosed. The synchronized captioning system and methods provide accurate real-time captioning to a scripted live performance by ingesting a digital script, indexing and annotating the script with time duration, speech cadence, and performance details, and creating an enhanced digital script that includes encapsulated segments. Audience caption devices are registered to receive broadcast transmission of the encrypted script by identifying the correct encapsulated segment at the correct time. Speech is captured and converted to text, with pattern matching of text and time offset calculations timely transmit of each segment. The audience caption devices can pause, backup, move forward, and display live captions, with copyright protection enabled for the performance.