GENERAL INFORMATION, GUIDELINES & EXPECTATIONS

Welcome to the 2010 CSC season.  Following are general information, participation guidelines and expectations for parents, students, and adult participants.

1) It Takes A Village:  putting on a play requires the participation of many individuals.  By choosing to join the CSC family you open yourself to the joys, miracles, occasional frustrations, and many responsibilities involved. Enter into this experience with your eyes open, your heart open, and an understanding that what you get out of it will be directly related to what you put in.

2) Tempus Fugit (time flies):  in the beginning, 10 weeks seems like a long time. In the end it never seems like enough.  By accepting a role, a CSC participant willingly and knowingly makes a commitment to the rehearsal and performance schedules.  Please check your calendar and be sure there are no conflicts with performance dates or with required rehearsals.  Be aware that for the final 10 days (Closed Weekend through Clean-up) we all give our lives over to the play.

3) Respect:  everything we do in CSC revolves around the notion that we treat each other with respect and kindness.  We cannot succeed in our endeavor if anyone in the company is rude, mean, physically or verbally abusive to anyone else.  A violation of this code may result in a participant being asked to leave rehearsal, and in an extreme case, to leave the company.  No tuition refund would be given in this case.

4) Volunteer Hours: by joining CSC, parents can expect to put in a minimum of 8-20 hours of time.  Some volunteers choose to put in more than 100 hours.  A breakdown of how this may affect tuition is on the current CSC Information document.  A list of Volunteer Jobs and Job Descriptions will also be made available.

5) Be On Time: When someone is late for rehearsal, everyone waits and time is wasted. CSC is unique in scheduling actors only for the time they are needed. Please plan to pick up your student when rehearsal is scheduled to end.  We do not leave students younger than high school unattended, but it is not appropriate to be late to pick up students of any age.

6) More about Rehearsals: The rehearsal schedule for each play is posted weekly on the CSC website, and distributed via email to all participants who have submitted an email address.  Every effort is made to work rehearsals around known obstacles (e.g. athletics, tap), and to post the schedule by Saturday of the week before.  If you need to know the schedule sooner, or need to make special arrangements in advance, please communicate your needs to the Director as soon as you know them.
Rehearsals take place at Skinner’s Barn, 161 Dusty Road (off Vista Road, near the intersection of Richardson and Paradise Roads).  We are very privileged to have the use of this space; all participants are expected to treat it with respect. 
Students who go outside or upstairs at the Barn are not supervised.  The building and area have some inherent risks.  If you do not wish your child to have permission to leave the rehearsal room, you must indicate this in writing.  CSC has limited accident insurance.

7) Snacks: it is appropriate for participants to have snacks at rehearsal.  It is the responsibility of families to provide them for their participating student.  Students are expected to clean up after themselves.  Sometimes parents provide a group snack, in which case the parent is responsible for clean-up.  Group snacks are strictly voluntary, and are not considered part of the required volunteer hours. During Performance Week, snacks are provided by CSC and monitored by a parent volunteer.

8) Communication: is a two way street.  With an average of 100 people involved, CSC affects a lot of lives. Every year, more effort goes into distributing information to participating families.  Inevitably, something falls through the cracks.  Please read all information that is distributed on paper, posted to the website or distributed via email.  If you have questions or concerns, contact the Director.

9) Health:  people get sick, particularly near or during performance time.  Common sense is the best medicine: participants should stay home as needed, avoid exposing themselves to ill-health scenarios (e.g. playing in the cold and wet); wash their hands, drink plenty of fluids, etc.  When someone can’t come to rehearsal, notify the Director.  In performance, we don’t have understudies, but we deal with whatever comes along.

10) Happiness:  CSC is process-oriented.  This means success is not measured primarily by the end product.  Participants learn that it doesn’t matter if they make mistakes (everyone does); what matters is working together, moving forward, gaining confidence, learning, and above all, having fun.  That’s why they call it “play-ing.”