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One Act Play Festival

The One Act Festival is a national festival with three stages. Entrants go through district, divisional and national events.

About the festival

This Festival operates as a national event with three main stages. All entrants participate within their own District and the leading team or teams progress to the Divisional Festival. The winning two entrants from the Divisional Festival then progress to the Scottish Final and the Scottish winner proceeds to the British Final. 

At all levels the performances are reviewed by an adjudicator who gives a short assessment of the plays to the audience, in addition to choosing the winners of the various awards available. Festivals at all levels are held at specific venues and are spread over a number of nights.

Festival events and timeline

District Festivals should normally be completed by the end of February and District Secretaries need to receive notice of intended entries by the second Saturday of December of the preceding year. 

Any club considering entering for the first time should discuss their plans with their District Secretary at the earliest possible time. 

Divisional Festivals are normally over by the end of March and the Scottish Final normally takes place in late April. 

Full details of rules and procedures are available from the festivals rules section. There are actually two parallel festivals – Open and Youth. 

The Districts and Divisions operate their Youth Festivals in different ways, but each Division sends its winning Youth team to a Scottish Youth Final, generally held in June.

Festival competitions

Scott Salver

Scottish playwriting competition for plays making their debut performance at a district round of the festival.

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Geoffrey Whitworth

UK-wide playwriting competition for plays making their debut performance at a district round of the festival.

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Youth competition

The Youth competition runs in parallel with the open competition.  The entry process is the same

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Poster competition

Celebrates the design skills involved in producing high quality posters during the festival.

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