Speech & Drama · Channel Islands & Gibraltar
Gibraltar Cultural Services’ 69-year-running amateur one-act-play festival: real Adult and Youth divisions, a real 20-55 minute performance window, and a real 100-point Best Play scoring total, built from the festival’s own official 2026 rules.
One production item for two divisions, a 55-minute limit and a 100-point Best Play total, ready to install. Adjust the divisions, time window and marks to suit your own drama festival, and open registration the same day.
This template rebuilds a long-running amateur one-act-play festival from Gibraltar as a working eTalenter event. It is not a talent show with dozens of small items. Theatre groups bring a complete short play, and the whole production is judged as one performance, so the structure is deliberately small: one competition item, two divisions.
The divisions follow the festival’s own rules. The Adult division is for groups made up mainly of people past school-leaving age. The Youth division is for groups whose acting parts are all played by participants aged 17 or under. Because the rules define divisions by who is in the cast rather than by a birth-year band, the template models them as ages 18 and over and 6 to 17, and both are entered as teams, open to boys and girls, performing in English.
The performance window is part of the rules: a play runs for at least 20 minutes and at most 55, and the adjudicator may allow a further 10 minutes before points are deducted. The template uses the 55-minute maximum. The Best Play award is marked out of a published total of 100 points, covering acting, production and endeavour, originality, stage presentation and theatrical attainment. The source publishes no split of those 100 points, so your panel can agree its own weighting.
Beyond Best Play, the real festival hands out named trophies for individual acting, directing, original script and technical presentation, awarded at the adjudicator’s discretion. Those are not modelled as ranked results here. Entry fees are installed as zero so each organiser sets their own; the source describes a refundable deposit, not a standard fee.
Where this event is run
One-act-play festivals of this kind are run by amateur drama societies, arts councils and youth theatre groups, often as heats that feed a national final. Use this setup for a community drama festival, a schools’ drama day or a youth theatre showcase where each group presents one complete play and a single adjudicator or small panel scores it.
- Gibraltar
- United Kingdom
Key facts
- One competition item (One-Act Play) assigned to two divisions: Youth and Adult.
- Team entry, open to boys and girls, performed in English.
- Performance limit: 20 to 55 minutes, with a 10-minute grace at the adjudicator’s discretion.
- Best Play is marked out of 100 points; no per-criterion split is published.
- Youth division: every acting part played by someone aged 17 or under.
- Individual acting, directing and technical trophies exist in the real festival but are not installed as ranked results.
- Age groups
- 2
- Competition items
- 1
- Competitions
- 2
- Grade bands
- 0
- Rank awards
- 0
Age groups
Every candidate is placed into one of these groups by age, and competitions are run per group.
Youth
Candidates aged 6 to 17 compete in this group
Adult
Candidates aged 18 to 120 compete in this group
Competition items
The events themselves — each with the category it belongs to and how judges score it.
Competitions by group
The full schedule matrix, sectioned by age group then category — which item runs for whom, and for how long.
| Item | Type | Gender | Language | Max score | Time limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Youth | |||||
| Action | |||||
| Item | Type | Gender | Language | Max score | Time limit |
| One-Act Play | Team | — | English | 100 | 55 min |
| Adult | |||||
| Action | |||||
| Item | Type | Gender | Language | Max score | Time limit |
| One-Act Play | Team | — | English | 100 | 55 min |
Frequently asked questions
Can I change this template after installing it?
Yes — installing it creates a fully configured, live event, not a locked package. Every age group, competition item, rule and scoring setting can be edited afterwards to match exactly what your event actually needs.
Do I need technical knowledge to set this up?
No. Installing a template does the setup work for you; you only need to review the details (dates, unit or house names) and open registration.
Want the fuller picture first? See our guide to drama and skit judging criteria.
Install this template in eTalenter
Everything above is installed as a live, editable event in one step — age groups, items, rules and scoring. Start your own below.
