Action Verse Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A team speaks a short verse together while acting out its words with set gestures and movements, and is marked on diction, unison and how well the actions match the text.

Action verse is a group class in which a rhyme or short poem is spoken aloud and acted at the same time. Every line has a matching gesture or small movement, so the audience hears the words and sees them: arms rise for a sunrise, hands patter for rain, a step back for a frightened mouse. It sits between choral speaking, where the team stays still and uses voices alone, and a full dramatic item, where the performers take on characters and move freely across the stage.

A round is short. The team lines up in a formation, begins together on a cue and speaks the verse with its prepared actions, usually two or three verses or one sustained poem rather than a long script. The adjudicator watches two things at once: whether the voices are clear and together, and whether the actions are neat, identical across the team and tied to the meaning of each line. A sloppy gesture that arrives a beat late is as visible as a mumbled word.

On the eTalenter template that carries it, a Sri Lankan speech and drama festival, the class is always a Team entry for boys and girls together, spoken in English. It is split into four age bands, 3-6, 7-9, 10-14 and 15 and over, with limits of 2, 3, 4 and 5 minutes counted per head, and each band is marked out of 10. The youngest band is the natural home of the item, since small children learn a verse faster through movement than through memory alone.

Organisers run it because it lets very young and mixed-ability groups take part without anyone having to act a character or speak alone. It rewards teaching and rehearsal, needs no set, costume or sound system, and produces a bright, easily watched round in a crowded programme.

Where Action Verse is run

Action Verse appears on one eTalenter template, built from a published Sri Lankan speech and drama festival syllabus. Verse spoken with gestures is a familiar children’s class in the speech and drama festival tradition and in school and nursery programmes more widely, but the group size, time limits and age bands vary from one syllabus to the next, so check your own event’s rules.

• Sri Lanka

Key facts

• Team entry, open to boys and girls together, spoken in English
• Four age bands on the Sri Lankan template: 3-6, 7-9, 10-14 and 15 and over
• Time limits of 2, 3, 4 and 5 minutes respectively, counted per head
• Each band is marked out of 10; the template prints no separate judging criteria for this class, so none are assumed here
• Different from Choral Speaking (voices only, no set actions), Action Song (sung, with actions) and Verse Speaking (individual recitation)

On eTalenter, Action Verse is filed under Literary 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, Action Verse is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 10, commonly time-limited to 2–5 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Action Verse

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

• Unison of voice: the team starts, pauses and finishes together, and no voice drifts ahead of or behind the group
• Diction and clarity: every word of the verse reaches the back of the room, including in the faster lines
• Synchronised actions: the gestures are identical across the team and land on the right word, not a beat early or late
• Match of action to meaning: each movement shows what the line says, so the verse is clearer for being acted
• Expression and energy: faces, eyes and posture show the mood of the verse, from playful to quiet
• Control and presentation: tidy formation, confident entry and exit, and a finish inside the time limit

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Action Verse under Scoring Setup, or start from the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Action Verse

How entrants and their teachers usually get Action Verse right on the day:

• Choose a verse with clear pictures in every line, such as weather, animals or a daily routine, so each line suggests a natural action
• Write the script with two columns, the words and the action beside each one, and give a copy to every team member and teacher
• Teach the words first and the actions second; once the verse is secure, add the movement a line at a time rather than all at once
• Keep actions simple and large enough to be seen from the back; ten clean gestures beat thirty fussy ones
• Rehearse facing a mirror or a recording so the team can see whether arms rise and fall together
• Practise while keeping the voice steady during movement: breathing and projection often fade when children start to act
• Time the piece with a stopwatch against the band limit, and place the tallest and quietest performers so everyone is seen and heard

Frequently asked questions

Is Action Verse judged individually or as a team?

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

What is action verse?

It is a verse or rhyme spoken by a group while the words are acted out with set gestures and movements. There is no singing and no musical backing.

Is action verse the same as an action song?

No. An action song is sung, usually to a tune, with actions. In action verse the words are spoken, and the panel judges diction and unison as well as the actions.

Is action verse judged as a team or as individuals?

As a team. It is a Team entry on the template that carries it, and the panel marks the combined performance of the group.

How long can an action verse be?

On the Sri Lankan template the limit is 2 minutes for ages 3-6, 3 minutes for 7-9, 4 minutes for 10-14 and 5 minutes for 15 and over, counted per head. Check your own syllabus for the exact rule.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide, or browse every literary competition item.