The following relates to children who are part of a Body of Persons licence which is only applicable to stage productions.
Payment
Children must not receive payment for any performance, other than expenses.
Education
Children who are part of a Body of Persons are not individually licensed therefore they are not allowed to take time off from their education for a performance. For this reason, no child must perform or rehearse at a time when they should be in school.
Place of performance
The place of performance is defined as the area backstage that includes the stage, wings, dressing rooms and green room.
All performances must be within the jurisdiction of Devon County Council to whom the Body of Persons has applied to for a licence.
Supervision
All children must be chaperoned by their own parent/s or a licensed chaperone with a regulatory requirement of a ratio of 1 adult to 12 children.
However, good practice recommends that a male and a female chaperone is available to enable gender issues to be accommodated as well as allowing for continued supervision of the children should it be necessary for a chaperone to deal with individual issues when they arise.
Please note that unless the parent is a licensed chaperone they cannot chaperone other children.
Number of performances
A child cannot take part in a rehearsal or a performance on more than six days in any period of seven days (note that in this context rehearsal is defined as one taking place during the life of the licence).
If in the life of a Body of Persons licence a child is additionally called upon to take part in or rehearse for another production other than that that is covered by the Body of Persons licence then the child cannot take part on more than five days in any period of seven days.
Length of time performing
- A child must not take part in a performance that lasts for more than 3.5 hours.
- A child’s appearance in each performance must not exceed 2.5 hours.
- A child must not take part in more than 2 performances or one rehearsal and one performance in a day.
- A child must have a break of 1.5 hours between two performances or rehearsals in the same day. This break of 1.5 hours can be reduced to 45 minutes on two days in a week as long as the child is not at the same place of performance for more than six hours
- If a child performs or rehearses on consecutive days there must be a break of 14 hours or more between each day that they are performing, for example, if there is a performance with an end time of 10:00 pm then the child cannot take part in another rehearsal or performance until 12:00 noon the following day.
Permitted hours for stage performances
After each performance the regulations allow 30 minutes after their performance for the children to shower and change, therefore standard start and finish times are:
A child aged younger than 13 years
- Earliest start time: 10:00 am
- Latest finish time: 10:00 pm
- Latest departure time from theatre: 10:00 pm
A child aged 13 years and over
- Earliest start time: 10:00 am
- Latest finish time: 10:30 pm
- Latest departure time from theatre: 10:30 pm
The latest finish time may be extended by 30 minutes on a maximum of 3 evenings in any one week at the discretion of the Local Authority, this then means that finish times and theatre departure times could be:
A child aged younger than 13 years
- Earliest start time: 10:00 am
- Latest finish time: 10:00 pm
- Plus discretionary 30 minutes: 10:30 pm
- Latest departure time from theatre: 10:30 pm
A child aged 13 years and over
- Earliest start time: 10:00 am
- Latest finish time: 10:30 pm
- Plus discretionary 30 minutes: 11:00 pm
- Latest departure time from theatre: 11:00 pm
Information or records to be retained
A record must be kept by the Body of Persons applicant on each child’s performance, for six months after the last performance of each production, for inspection if called upon.
For further information, please contact 01392 287223.