Dramatic Solo Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A single performer plays a dramatic role or scene alone, judged on characterisation and stage presence.

A dramatic solo is a short piece of acting performed by one person. The entrant chooses a speech or scene from a play, or a self-contained dramatic monologue, and plays it as a single character, in English, for a panel of one adjudicator or more. It is acting rather than recitation: the entrant is expected to be someone other than themselves, with a clear situation, a want and a turning point inside a few minutes.

A round is brisk. The entrant is called, announces the title and the author, takes a starting position and begins. There is usually no set and no costume, so a chair, a single prop or a change in posture has to do the work of a room. The adjudicator watches how convincingly the character thinks and feels, whether the words are heard, and whether the piece builds to something rather than staying at one pitch from start to finish.

On paper an entry is one named performer, the title of the piece and the author. Across the templates that carry it, the item is an Individual class open to boys and girls together, marked in Marks out of 10, and offered in several age bands. The time limits grow with age: two to three minutes for the youngest school years, around four minutes for the middle years, and five to ten minutes for the oldest bands in some programmes. Because no separate criteria are printed, organisers should tell entrants beforehand how characterisation, voice and control of the piece will be weighed.

Organisers run the class because it is the natural next step after verse speaking and prose reading. It teaches a young performer to hold a stage alone, gives teachers a clear way to see who has understood a text and not only memorised it, and produces a varied session because every entrant makes different choices from a very different character.

Where Dramatic Solo is run

Dramatic Solo appears on six eTalenter templates, all of them speech and drama sections of local festivals: three in England, one in Scotland, one in Ireland and one in Canada. It usually sits in the Action category beside monologue, duologue and group drama. It is closest to a Mono Act, but it is judged as a piece of acting from a scripted text rather than as an original one-person show, and it differs from a Duologue, which needs a second actor.

• United Kingdom (England and Scotland)
• Ireland
• Canada

Key facts

• Individual entry of one performer, boys and girls together
• Performed in English from a scripted speech or scene, in character and from memory unless the class says otherwise
• Age bands run from the youngest school years up to adults, from 4 age bands on one template to 8 on another
• Time limits on the templates run from 2 minutes for the youngest bands to 10 minutes for the oldest in one programme; most sit between 3 and 6 minutes
• Marked in Marks out of 10 on every template; no separate judging criteria are printed
• Different from a Mono Act (original one-person show), from a Duologue (two actors) and from a prose or verse recitation

On eTalenter, Dramatic Solo is filed under Action and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 6 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Dramatic Solo is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 10, commonly time-limited to 2–10 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Dramatic Solo

What a Dramatic Solo panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Characterisation: the performer becomes one clear person with a want, shown through voice, posture, eyes and face rather than through the words alone
• Understanding of the text: the choices show that the speech is understood, so a joke lands as a joke and a threat as a threat
• Clarity and audibility: every word reaches the back of the room, including at moments of anger, fear or laughter
• Shape of the piece: it has a beginning, a turning point and an end, and the energy rises and falls on purpose
• Use of voice: pace, pitch, volume and pause are varied, with silence used as a choice and not as a gap while remembering lines
• Stage presence and control: movement is simple and motivated, the performer faces the audience and does not drift, fidget or play to the adjudicator’s desk
• Command and finish: the lines are secure with no prompting, and the piece ends cleanly inside the time limit

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Dramatic Solo under Scoring Setup, or start from the full mono act judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Dramatic Solo

How entrants and their teachers usually get Dramatic Solo right on the day:

• Choose a speech that suits your age and range, with a character who changes during it; a speech where the person feels the same throughout is hard to make interesting
• Read the whole play, or at least the scenes either side, so you know what the character has just done and what they want next
• Write one sentence on who the character is speaking to and why now; every line should sound different once that is decided
• Learn the words first, then rehearse standing and moving, so the lines are automatic and you can think about the character instead of the next word
• Time the piece aloud, including the introduction, against the limit for your age band, and cut a line rather than race to fit
• Keep staging small: pick a starting position, one or two moves with a reason, and an ending position, and practise facing the audience throughout
• Record yourself or perform for a teacher and ask what was clear and what was not, then fix the one weakest thing each rehearsal

Frequently asked questions

Is Dramatic Solo judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Is a dramatic solo the same as a monologue?

They overlap closely. A dramatic solo is acting a single character from a script, and on some programmes the class is called a dramatic monologue. Check the class description to see whether your piece must come from a published play.

How long can a dramatic solo be?

It depends on the programme and the age band. On the templates that carry this item the limit runs from 2 minutes for the youngest bands to 10 minutes for the oldest in one programme, and most sit between 3 and 6 minutes. The limit normally includes the introduction.

Do I need a costume or props?

Usually not. Most programmes expect a plain stage, and costume is not marked on the templates. A single chair or small prop is generally fine, but the acting should carry the scene.

Is it judged individually or as a team?

Individually. It is an Individual class for one performer, marked in Marks out of 10 on every template that carries it. A two-person scene belongs in the Duologue class instead.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full mono act judging criteria guide, or browse every action competition item.