Drama – Mimicry Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A solo theatre item in which one student imitates voices, sounds and familiar personalities in a short planned act, marked on theme, expression, stage design, costume and makeup, overall presentation and a write-up with a video.

Drama – Mimicry is the voice-impression item of a school arts festival. One student in classes IX to XII takes the stage alone and performs a planned act built from imitations: the voices of well-known people, the manner of familiar characters such as a teacher or a shopkeeper, and everyday sounds such as a train, a market or birdsong. It sits in the theatre group of the festival, so the panel expects a performance with shape rather than a loose string of party tricks.

On the national school arts festival template the item is an individual entry, boys and girls together, with an eight-minute limit and a mark total of 100. No warning time is set and no language applies, so the performer may mimic in any language. The source rules for theatre allow six to eight minutes of performance, with a further five minutes to set up and five to clear the stage, which matters for a performer who brings a small prop or a backdrop.

The printed sheet is the same as for the other drama items: Theme 20, Communication skill / Expression 20, Stage decor / Design 10, Costume and makeup 10, Overall presentation 20, and Write-up and video 20. Because the theme carries as many marks as expression, a good entry has a reason for its sequence, for example a day in a village told through the people met along the way, rather than impressions chosen at random. Before the day the student prepares a short written note on the idea and a recorded video, judged together for 20 marks.

Organisers run the item because it rewards careful listening and vocal control, two skills that other stage items do not test so directly. It also gives a confident student with a good ear a place in the programme alongside the acting, mime and play items, and audiences tend to enjoy it.

Where Drama – Mimicry is run

On the eTalenter templates this item appears on one: a national school arts festival in India for classes IX to XII, where it is the second of four drama items beside a mono act, a mime group and a play group. A plain Mimicry item, without the drama prefix, appears on many other templates, mostly Kerala school and college festivals and some university zonal circuits. Voice impressions are a staple of school, college and youth talent programmes in many countries, but time limits, props and whether the act must carry a theme differ, so organisers elsewhere should check their own programme.

• India

Key facts

• Individual item: one student, classes IX to XII, boys and girls together
• Time limit on the template: 8 minutes; no warning time is set
• Source rules for theatre: 6 to 8 minutes of performance, plus 5 minutes to set up and 5 to clear the stage
• Marked out of 100: Theme 20, Communication skill / Expression 20, Stage decor / Design 10, Costume and makeup 10, Overall presentation 20, Write-up and video 20
• No language applies; the performer chooses the language or languages of the act
• The write-up and video are prepared in advance and judged separately from the live performance
• Kept as its own item, separate from the plain Mimicry item, because it uses the theatre mark sheet

On eTalenter, Drama – Mimicry is filed under Drama and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Drama – Mimicry is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 8 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Drama – Mimicry

What a Drama – Mimicry panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Theme: a clear idea linking the impressions, with a start, a middle and an ending, rather than unrelated voices in a row
• Communication skill / Expression: how recognisable each voice is, clear diction, and the face and gesture that go with it; a likeness that is only half there loses marks
• Stage decor / Design: only 10 marks, so one simple prop or a plain stage used well beats a cluttered set that eats the set-up time
• Costume and makeup: simple dress that lets the performer change character with a hat, shawl or spectacles; elaborate changes slow the act down
• Overall presentation: a confident entry, clean moves from one voice to the next, pace, and an ending that lands inside the time limit
• Write-up and video: a short note stating the idea and how the act shows it, with a clear recording; marks go when the note describes a different act from the one on stage
• Time discipline: an act that overruns risks being stopped, and one far shorter leaves the panel little to mark

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

How to prepare for Drama – Mimicry

How entrants and their teachers usually get Drama – Mimicry right on the day:

• Choose a simple frame first, such as a bus journey, a wedding or a market morning, and pick only the voices that belong in it
• Listen to a real recording of each voice or sound many times and copy rhythm and breathing as well as pitch
• Aim for four to six impressions, ordered so that a deep, slow voice is followed by a quick, high one and each reads clearly
• Practise the move between voices until it takes one beat, using a small signal such as a turn of the head or a prop
• Time the whole act with a stopwatch, including the pauses, and keep the set-up to what can be done and cleared in five minutes
• Rehearse for someone who has not heard the act and ask them to name each voice; cut any they cannot recognise
• Keep the material suitable for a school audience and avoid cruel or unkind imitations of real people
• Write the note in the student’s own words and film the video in good light with the whole performer in frame
• After a lower placing, replay the video against the six printed aspects and rework the weakest one first

Frequently asked questions

Is Drama – Mimicry 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 Drama – Mimicry the same as mono act?

No. In a mono act the performer plays out a scene as one or more characters. In mimicry the performer imitates voices, sounds or familiar people, usually in a linked sequence.

Is Drama – Mimicry the same as the plain Mimicry item?

They test the same skill, but this one is marked on the theatre sheet, with 20 marks each for theme and expression and 20 more for a write-up and video, so it needs a planned theme.

How long can the act be?

On this template the limit is eight minutes. The source rules allow six to eight minutes of performance, with five minutes to set up and five to clear the stage.

Can the performer use props or a recorded sound?

The template marks stage design and costume, so simple props and dress are expected. The source summary used here does not say whether recorded sound is allowed, so organisers should confirm it in their own rules.

Is the write-up and video part of the marks?

Yes. Twenty of the 100 marks are for the write-up and video, prepared before the day and judged separately from the live act.

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