Speech, Drama and Mime
Speech, Drama and Mime Syllabus
The 2025 Hastings Musical Festival Syllabus for Speech, Drama and Mime will be published via playandperform on 1st September. Entries open on 1st October and close on 30th November 2024. The dates for the 2025 Festival are February 24th to 27th.
Thank you to all who took part in our 2024 Festival. We were pleased that the number of our entries increased again over the previous year and we enjoyed a very busy Festival with our adjudicator Ann Bauer.
We are looking forward to Rebecca Vines coming to adjudicate in 2025. Although highly qualified and experienced, this will be her first visit to us and we'll be delighted to welcome her. We are happy to be able to say, again, that there will be trophies to be won in all classes for those aged under 19 in Speech Solos, Humorous Verse, Dramatic Monologue, Dramatic Duologue and Mime.
Read the Syllabus carefully as the two new classes that were introduced last year are back and adjustments have been made to some others in relation to time limits, age limits and School Year groupings.
Most importantly, across the whole Festival, we will be using the new BIFF marking scheme and so there is information in the combined syllabus about the new marking bands with their descriptors and criteria to help you become familiar with them. We hope, very much that the new scheme will greatly enhance your Hastings Musical Festival experience.
There are over seventy Speech, Drama and Mime classes to choose from and, as usual, there are some special trophies encompassing all age groups for aggregate marks across two or three of the four genres: Poetry, Prose, Monologue and Mime; so you may wish to consider combinations of entries to give yourself opportunities to achieve these additional awards. There are also two aggregate awards for those aged under 13 for combinations of entries in Speech with Piano or Singing, and Speech with Dance.
If you are aged 19 or over or are a previous Silver Medal winner, do give serious thought to making an entry in the Speech Gold Medal class. Although, in this class, 90 must be achieved to be awarded the medal, there will be a cash prize of £150 for a winning mark of 87 or more.
Before looking at the Speech, Drama and Mime Syllabus, please go to the Combined Syllabus where you will find the General Rules, which are applicable to all sections, and information about our Special Trophies.
If you have any queries, contact Deirdre Goodger, the Section Secretary: dgoodger46@gmail.com
Shakespeare, in Hamlet, Act lll, Scene 2, has some good advice to those entering this Section:
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all gently."
Syllabus
Browse the Speech, Drama and Mime syllabusAny queries contact the Section Secretary, Deirdre Goodger at dgoodger46@gmail.com
Adjudicators
Adjudicator
Rebecca Vines Qualifications: MA,FVCM,LLAM,LALAM,GSMD,ATCL,ANEA. Memberships: FRSA,MSTSD(Adj)
Rebecca read journalism at Cardiff University, during which time she wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper. She continues to work for a range of publications as a features writer, ghost writer, and theatre critic.
Rebecca then studied as an actor at the London Centre for Theatre Studies; and her theatre credits include off-West End, Fringe, tour, educational theatre and voiceover. Favourite roles include Maggie (Dancing at Lughnasa); Elizabeth (The Crucible); Beverley (Abigail’s Party); Madame Arcati (Blithe Spirit); Martha (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).
Rebecca trained as a specialist drama teacher at The Guildhall. She has taught in a range of primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions for the last twenty years; and is the Principal of her own drama school, which operates internationally. Rebecca’s pupils have been awarded places at major conservatoires and bodies such as RADA, LAMDA, Central, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall, Bristol Old Vic, Mountview, East 15, Guildford, AADA, Royal Birmingham, the Oxford School of Drama, National Youth Theatre, and the National Youth Music Theatre. Their work can be seen on the BBC, ITV, Sky, C4, E4, Netflix, Working Title, National Theatre, RSC, and with countless touring theatre companies in the UK and abroad.
Rebecca sits on the Adjudicator’s Council for the British and International Federation of Festivals; on the Awards Panel for the UKPA; and is a LAMDA, GCSE and A Level examiner.
In 2014, Rebecca was awarded the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of her work in the youth theatre sector. Rebecca is passionate about helping performers take their first professional steps, and helps emerging talents to form and manage their own theatre companies. As such, Close Up Theatre, No Prophet Theatre, and Eleventh Hour Theatre have all played to critical and commercial acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: kickstarting careers and forging critical industry networking opportunities.
Rebecca’s productions have played to critical acclaim and commercial success at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2023. In addition to directing and producing over thirty sell-out shows at the Fringe; Rebecca has adapted classics such as 1984, Jane Eyre, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice for the stage; and has written the original works More Myself Than I Am, Torn, Coward Conscience, and OTMA.
Rebecca is currently working on a PhD based around Shakespeare’s history plays; and she is passionate about inclusivity and diversity in the Arts, spending her free time ‘making things happen’ for people who would otherwise have no agency within the creative sector.