Brandeis Players Constitution

We, the members of the Brandeis Players (hereafter referred to as Players), an auxiliary of the Brandeis University Student Senate and the Undergraduate Theatre Collective (hereafter referred to as the UTC), are devoted to the production and promotion of theater on campus. This shall be accomplished mainly by the presentation of one full length play (non-musical) each semester, but also by sponsoring other theatrical activities, such as workshops, master classes, field trips, projects, etc.

Article I: Membership

Membership in Players shall include any member of the Brandeis student body who participates in a production as part of the production staff or cast, or has previously attended the majority of two meetings. Members must attend at least one meeting or be on the production staff or cast for a Players production every school year to retain membership.

Article II: Officers

  1. President: The president's responsibilities include:
    1. Calling a meeting at the end of each semester for proposals to be considered and voted upon for the next year
    2. Acting as a liaison between Players and the UTC by acting as one of the two representatives for Players on the UTC commission.
      1. If the President is unable to fulfill this role, the Executive Officers must select a viable replacement from the Players constituency.
    3. Conducting all meetings, breaking ties, and insuring adherence to the rules of the constitution
  2. Secretary: The secretary's responsibilities include:
    1. Keeping attendance records
    2. Taking minutes
    3. Tallying votes at meetings
    4. Publicizing meetings, events and proposal deadlines
    5. Accepting presidential responsibilities should the president be unable to fulfill the duties of the office
    6. Acting as one of two representatives for Players on the UTC commission
      1. If the Secretary is unable to fulfill this role, the Executive Officers must select a viable replacement from the Players constituency.
  3. Treasurer: The treasurer's responsibilities include:
    1. Dealing with all financial matters and records
    2. Supervising the producer's budgets, records, and dealing with the Allocations Board of the student senate
    3. Accepting presidential responsibilities should both the president and secretary be unable to fulfill the duties of the office

Article III: Guidelines for Elections of Officers

  1. The officers for the next year must be nominated and elected by a majority vote at the spring semester meeting.
  2. Any member of Players may run for executive office.
  3. Any member of Players may vote in elections.
  4. If a member cannot attend a meeting, he or she may give a proxy vote in writing to an attending member, who then will give this to the presiding officer before the meeting begins. A proxy is a vote yielded by one active member to another who avows to represent the interest of the absent member. There is a limit of one proxy vote per attending member.

Article IV: Guidelines for Production Proposals and Selection

  1. Any Brandeis student may propose a play.
  2. Each proposal must include the following:
    1. The production staff, including the director, producer, stage manager, and set designer. Having additional production staff members committed to proposals, specifically a lighting designer and costume designers, is strongly encouraged but not required.
    2. Plot summary and character breakdown
    3. An estimated budget, including any available rights/ scripts fees, set cost, lighting cost, costumes cost, program and publicity costs, UTC Fees, Carl J. Shapiro Theater Fees, ticket sale income and income from fund raising events
    4. Ticket sale income shall be listed in the budget with a 50% sale rate on average, and 10% of sales in advance, and 90% at the door. As an example, if tickets are to be $5 in advance and $6 at the door, the budget shall list ticket sales as:
      125 (50% of the Carl J. Shapiro Theater seating)
      x10%
      x5.00 = $62.50
      125
      x90%
      x6.00= $675 + $62.50 = $737.50
      This number shall then be multiplied by the total number of performances to yield the total predicted ticket sales.
    5. Why Players is the appropriate club to sponsor the production
    6. Why UTC is the appropriate environment for the production
    7. Why the proposed space is the appropriate performance space for the production
    8. A preliminary set design/ground plan and a furniture and props list.
    9. A preliminary lighting plot detailing the approximate number and types of lights needed, and special items needed, and an estimate of gel color, templates and other lighting consumable needed
  3. Exceptions may be made to the above proposal guidelines at the president's discretion, on a case by case basis.
  4. Any member of Players may vote at the proposal meeting.
  5. Members may also vote by proxy, as explained in Article III.
  6. Voting options for proposals are as follows: a vote for a production, an abstain, or a vote for no show.
  7. The production will be chosen by a simple majority vote, as collected by the officers.
  8. If a play is not chosen at the proposal meeting at the end of a semester, the president may call for an additional meeting at the beginning of the next year.

Article V: Production Process

  1. Producer-Treasurer Contract
    1. Within the first two weeks of each semester, the Producer for the Main Stage show must meet with the current Treasurer to complete the Producer-Treasurer Contract.
    2. The Producer-Treasurer Contract will consist of all transactions that must occur between the Treasurer and Produce along with their respective due dates.
      1. This includes when the show's budget and show receipts are due to the Treasurer, when reimbursement checks are due to the Producer, Finalization of show dates etc.
    3. Treasurer holds the right to add and delete items from contract before it is signed by Producer
    4. Producer-Treasurer Contract must be approved by President before it is presented to the Producer.
    5. Producer-Treasurer Contract must be signed by both the Producer and Treasurer. President must sign contract as well, acting as an impartial third party.
    6. In the case that the current Treasurer is also the Producer, the current Secretary will take over the responsibilities of the Treasurer as listed above.
    7. Treasurer must be informed of and approve all changes to show finances after the Producer-Treasurer Contract has been signed.
  2. One member of the Executive Board must meet with the Producer of the semester's main stage show once every two weeks. This can be within the confines of the show's production meeting or individually. In addition, one member of the Executive Board must attend each show's first production meeting.

Article VI: The Constitution

  1. Amendments shall be presented to the president or presiding officer at least one week in advance of the meeting. The president or presiding officer, however, has the authority to call for the hearing of a constitutional amendment without one week notice, if she/he sees fit. There must be adequate notification of the membership, twenty-four hour prior to any voting on amendments. Amendments shall be passed with a simple majority of the attending members at the meeting.
  2. This constitution will be adopted upon approval by the Brandeis Student Senate and the Brandeis Players.

Article VII: Exclusivity

This club is non-exclusive and does not discriminate against members on the basis of sex, race, religion, sexual preference, class, age, nationality, or physical disability.