Meet Chelsea Gaskin
Chelsea Gaskin, the Owner of Starlight Dance Studios and Theater, has built the children’s dance studio and musical theater of her dreams.
I had so much fun talking with Chelsea about how the first seeds of this dream were planted, and how she’s paying forward the gifts of mentorship, support, love and leadership develoment she first received as a young student of dance and musical theater.
A performance of Annie by Starlight Dance Studio and Theater
Heather Anderson
Is there a quotation or saying that inspires you?
Chelsea Gaskin
I would say yes, but I want to qualify, it's actually my husband's favorite quotation and I absolutely love it, so I'm stealing it: "Aspire to inspire".
HA:
Oh, that's, that's gonna be one I need to borrow. I see how that fits you and what you do so well. It's also great when you can quote the person you live with.
CG:
Right? He's pretty amazing.
HA:
Haha, for sure! What is a characteristic about yourself that you're most proud of?
CG:
Passion and drive. I absolutely love what I do. And I work my butt off for it to the point where I probably need to delegate more. But I love what I do, so it is easy to completely throw myself into it.
HA:
I love that and what was the original inspiration for starting your company?
CG:
Well, I've been dancing since I was three. I've been doing theater since I was about 10. And I've always known this is what I wanted to do. And at some point that became a bit more refined into focusing on kids specificall. I'm one of those incredibly lucky people who's known what I wanted to do my entire life, and was able to pursue that since the beginning. So I got to jump in early and stay the path, which has been kind of amazing.
“I’m one of those incredibly lucky people who’s known what I wanted to do my entire life, and was able to pursue that since the beginning. ”
HA:
Yeah, that is really interesting. Because when you're in the field of arts, there are so many ways to pursue it. Like if you start dancing, you could become a dancer on a cruise, or you can become a dancer in musical theater in New York. Or you can be a dance teacher, or run a dance company. Do you know when those points of evolution were that you decided that it was going to be teaching, and then it was going to be children, and that you were going to run your own business? Because how did you know that you were an entrepreneur, because dancing and singing and acting is not the same as running and owning a business.
CG:
That's true. I was actually in seventh grade when I started assistant teaching my ballet teacher at Piedmont Ballet Academy. My school required that we have service hours, so I asked my ballet teacher if I could be his assistant. So he started training me to teach by being his assistant. And then sophomore year of high school, he was sick - and so was every sub on his short list. So I jumped from being an assistant to suddenly teaching all the classes at the studio for that one day. It was a Tuesday, I think I taught eight or 10 classes in one day from like 2:30 until 10 o'clock at night, including all the adult classes and I don't know, it kind of changed something in me; I really fell in love with teaching. And from then on, I became a regular sub for his studio. And in my senior year, I was the diva kid who had been performing and playing a lot of leads and a new drama teacher came into our school, and cast me as a tiny role in a production of The Crucible. And I was really disappointed about it because I was full of myself and thought I was gonna get the lead. And being kind of a petulant kid, I decided that wasn't how I wanted to spend my senior year. So instead, I started my own theatre company. I applied for some grants and got them and put on a production of Proof, which was a play. I directed and starred in it at my school and to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
What was amazing, is that the same teacher, Kim Taylor, who hadn’t cast me as the lead, didn’t turn on me but supported my effort. And honestly, the girls she cast in the lead roles were all awesome choices and I believe one of them now stars on SNL. Instead of stopping me from taking over the theater, she became my greatest ally. She sat during the rehearsals and watched me teach my peers, which was really hard. And then after every rehearsal, it was like 9 or 10 o'clock at night, she would stay with me and sit in the theater and give me notes about how I was teaching and what was working well and what wasn't. And she gave me critical feedback on how to be a better director, which was really monumental in shaping my ability to teach from a young age. So by the time I got to college - and was attending one of the best theater and dance schools in the country, I walked in with this mountain of experience and training. From there, it was clear to me that I wanted to direct and choreograph musical theater. And I kind of stayed that path.
HA:
Wow, that was incredible. So this was at Piedmont High. This is just a normal high school?
CG:
Yeah, just a regular high school. It was a great school!
HA:
That's amazing. I mean, it's very obvious that you do what you want to do. Like, no one's gonna tell Chelsea not to do something. I love that she had the maturity of an adult - which not all adults do, and instead of feeling slighted by your bold choice or rebuking your rebellion, she approached you with, "Oh, yeah, you got this".
CG:
Oh, she's amazing. And now we're good friends who reach out to each other for recommendations all the time. She was looking to hire someone a few weeks ago and I sent her one of my teachers. I have eternal respect for her.
HA:
Whoa, I love it. So what does a typical day in the life of your job look like these days?
CG:
Oh, my gosh, there isn't really a typical day. As much as there can be, I would say I have three different kinds of typical days.
Rehearsal Days:
A typical day, where it’s just classes and rehearsals, I will probably get up at around eight or nine and sit at a computer and get a bunch of the admin work done. And figure out my own choreography and what I'm teaching for the day, and then go into the studio around noon, and be working at the front desk, greeting clients and working with teachers or just cleaning the studio because when you have 300 small children running in and out of your space, it gets messy fast - with water bottles left out and things like that. And then around two or three o'clock in the afternoon classes are coming in and out and we have two different main studios that are running at the same time. By four o'clock, I'm teaching one of the classes. I direct and choreograph the big kids musicals. So I will be teaching the musical theater classes from four to eight, and then wrapping up at the front desk, but dance classes are still going on until as late as 10 o'clock at night sometimes. And then I go home and tend to sit at my computer and get a bit more work done before I go to bed. That's a rehearsal day.
Performance Days:
We also have performance days where the whole space transforms into a theater. So we're showing up and pulling out risers and pulling out chairs and opening these beautiful swinging doors that turn the whole space into a theater. And we're putting on a full musical. So we're there a lot of hours putting the show up.
Competition Travel Days:
And then we compete. So I have a lot of days over the year when I have the privilege of packing 35 high schoolers onto a plane and flying to Disneyland and doing a musical theater competition. Or bringing my middle school team up to Sacramento for dance competitions or for their musical theater competitions, or bringing my dance teams out to competitions across the state. And then we take our lead dancers down to Disneyland at the end of the year too. So we get to do a lot!
HA:
I did not know about this traveling competition stuff. So there are musical theater competitions?
CG:
Oh, yeah. It's wonderful. It's a whole lot of fun. We've done a bunch of them. But our two favorites are the Junior Theatre Festival in Sacramento, and the Musical Theater Competitions of America in Orange County.
HA:
And is the Orange County one the Disneyland one?
CG:
Yes. They do a competition in the huge hotel. And then the award ceremony has always taken place at Disneyland, but since Covid, they switched it over to Knott's Berry Farm. But my kids still want to go to Disneyland. So we go to the award ceremony at Knott's Berry Farm, then we hop on a bus and I take them all to Disneyland and we spend two days in Disneyland. They get to perform and tend to do really well. My kids are really good and often win.
HA:
What is the competition like? Do they do a scene? Do they do a song? What is it?
CG:
It's a whole variety of things. So the primary component is 12 minutes of a musical. This year we're doing Shrek the Musical. So I have taken the entirety of the musical and condensed it down into a 12-minute cut with pieces of songs and pieces of scenes. We auditioned the cast and they've been rehearsing that throughout the year. I also have a team that's doing a musical review, so they'll be doing a similar piece but with a theme. This year's theme is growing up. So we have different songs from musicals that are about growing up. So they start out playing little kids. And by the end of it, they’re high schoolers about to graduate, dancing at their prom. And they do all these different songs about growing up as they go. Then we perform that and compete against other schools. There's some amazing schools there that also put on incredible performances. And then, individually, my kids each have to do at least one - if not two or three independent categories. They can compete in dance pieces, they can do a dance solo or a vocal solo or a monologue. They can do a duet with another performer. Or they can compete in costume design, set design, makeup or hair design.
HA:
Oh, wow. I assumed all the performance stuff but I had no idea you could compete in design categories!
CG:
Oh, yeah, it's actually really cool. They bring in these incredible professionals that give them really wonderful feedback. I remember watching one kid do a costume design piece from the musical, Chicago.. And the judge was incredibly well informed and sat there and gave her specific feedback such as, “Well, here are the designers from that time period that you should be researching and who you should understand to be able to inform the choices you make. And when you're doing a presentation, you should be saying, “Well, I made the skirt this length. And I know that in the time period, it would have actually been this length because of these laws. But I made the choice to do it here for this creative reason.” They really give them an understanding of how to make design choices from an informed, historical background, which was really, really wonderful for these kids.
HA:
That's amazing. That sounds like college level to me.
CG:
Oh, yeah, it definitely is. They are doing a wonderful job preparing these kids to enter the professional world and to take the arts very seriously as a career.
HA:
Yeah, you know what? I was gonna ask you this next question, but maybe you've already answered it, because we flowed into something that sounds pretty amazing already. But I was gonna ask you what you’re most proud of that you or your company has done to date?
CG:
I would say I'm really proud of this element of what my company does. But I don't get to take credit for having created it myself, as the theater company is 22 years old and though I became involved 12 years ago, I only recently took over ownership. But what is so amazing is that it's a ‘stepping stone’ program. Meaning, we start with four year olds, and they watch the big kids while playing ensemble roles that don't have lines yet. They sing the songs and play the background characters.
And then you move up to the 8 to 14 year olds who will play the main roles in the younger kids plays.
And then we have the audition programs. So you can audition to be on the competitive teams that travel or move into our repertory company that does two shows a year, which are bigger shows, in middle school through high school. By that time, you're ending up in our studio several days a week and competing and performing and traveling.
And then within that there are all these leadership roles. So once you're in middle school, you can apply to be what we call captains. So you might be the vocal captain that leads the vocal warm ups or the dance captain that leads the dance warm ups, etc.
And then by the time you get up to high school, you can actually apply to be an intern, which means you're volunteering your time to go help teach the younger classes, to run the games for them and be the assistant directors or choreographers. And maybe you're choreographing some of the smaller scenes and songs while one of the other adult directors is working on the bigger scenes. And those interns often go on to become teachers themselves once they graduate college, and they even come back and teach for me professionally sometimes.
And this sense of leadership we get to instill in our big kids has the added benefit of giving our younger kids positive role models in their life. They get to see these big kids who are giving up their Friday nights to help teach them instead of going out and partying with their friends. And it just creates this truly warm and wholesome family-like environment in which these kids can grow up. And I'm proud of contributing to that.
I think a perfect example of this is that I recently planned a sleepover for my big kids, my high schoolers this past Summer. We did a ‘lock-in’, so all the high schoolers brought snacks to share and we brought out sleeping bags and set up space into a little movie theater so they could project a movie on the movie screen. And they planned, organized, and created their own wonderful party experience where I was just there to provide adult supervision. And they planned and created all of the experience.
It was so heartwarming to see high schoolers choosing to spend their free time doing face painting, musical theater themed karaoke, and watching The Muppet Movie. This was their concept of a wildly fun Friday night. And so that’s my long way around this answer. I’m just so proud that we’ve created this safe place where kids can mature, feel empowered and capable, but still get to still be kids.
HA:
I love that. And I think it’s so cool that you've come full circle to offering the same leadership opportunities your two teachers provided for you. You're definitely paying those gifts forward.
CG:
They're my babies. Watching them grow up is amazing.
HA:
You're giving me flashbacks to my own musical theater childhood. I think having musical theater as a kid is something so unique and special - and hard to explain. But it's something about acting and performing that brings out a different level of vulnerability and openness. And that creates this uniquely intimate family feeling. Maybe that’s why the theater company was so different from the sports teams I was on? I think it's the vulnerability that comes from drama exercises and, and bringing out emotions. I don't know what are your thoughts on that?
CG:
Absolutely. Actually, to that point, on the very first day of every class I ever teach in theater, I run my kids through the same exercise. I don't care if they're six years old, or they're in high school. And it becomes sort of this thing, when they've done it two or three times, where they roll their eyes and go, “Oh, this again?” And by the time they're seniors in high school, they're feeling: "Yes, this one again!"
I call it my "wicked witch exercise". I think that one of the roles that takes the most courage in the musical theater world is the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, because she has to scream and collapse to the ground and do her whole melting scene. It requires one to be really “big”.So I tell them, “Your line is ‘I'm melting, I'm melting, I'm melting’ and your direction is to fall on the floor and be melted by the end of the line.” And the first time they do it, they're kind of making sounds and they're being a little silly, and they fall on the floor and giggle.
And then I say, “Okay, now I want you to imagine if you were a shy second grader, and you got forced to play this role, and you don't want to play it. How would you do it?” And then they all say in a blase way, super small: "I'm melting, I'm melting,I'm melting" and fall to the floor, right? Super boring.
And then, “Now I want you to imagine you’re the best actor you look up to - your ultimate role model as a performer.” And then they would perform the line better than their first version.
That’s when I ask them, “Which was better, you being you in your first version? Or you being that amazing performer in your third version?” And of course, they pick the third performance.
So I ask, “Well, what do they have that you don't?” And everyone kind of stumbles over their answer and finally realizes that they have nothing more than them other than more courage, less fear.
And I say, “Okay, so what about the shy performer? What was holding them back from being just as big?” And we eventually get around to them answering: They're afraid. They don’t want to feel embarrassed.
"Okay, now I want you to imagine you're sitting in the audience, and you're watching versions of the wicked. One of them is a shy performer, and one of them is the one who completely commits and is rolling on the floor and screaming and frothing at the mouth and everything. And if you were watching it as an audience member, who are you embarrassed for?”
And you know, all the kids say, "Oh, I'm embarrassed for the shy one". And that’s the revelation. Because no one ever watches someone completely commit to their art and thinks, “Oh, I'm embarrassed for them.” We think, “Oh my gosh, that was amazing!” And so you see those light bulbs turn on in these kids' heads going, "Oh, it's, it's my fear of embarrassment that creates something embarrassing. If I throw that away, if I let myself completely commit, if I throw myself into what I'm doing, it's not embarrassing, it's wonderful.”
And something clicks, something completely changes for them. And we do it one more time. And this time, I say, imagine you're that incredible actor and go as big as you can. And suddenly, they're screaming and wailing and falling to the ground. It becomes fabulous, and silly and over the top.
And then I divide them in half, and I have half of them perform for the other half. And I tell the ones who are watching. Your only goal right now is to be a loving and supportive audience. No matter what you see in front of you, you are going to cheer that person on and tell them they were amazing.
All of a sudden, the performances turn into something special. And then we flip; the ones who were performing get to watch, and the ones watching get to perform. So everyone has a chance to perform for an audience member whose only goal is to be supportive and kind and loving.
And then we talk about the two things that we learned out of that exercise. One being, go as big as you can go and completely let go of a fear of embarrassment, and you will get there as a performer. You will grow and improve in this class.
And the second one is that your job is to not only to be big as a performer, but to be supportive of your peers, and to create a space that allows everyone around you to get as big as they possibly can and to be their best version of themselves.
And by creating that supportive environment, you're actually making the whole space better for yourself as well. And those two lessons that come out of that one 15-minute rehearsal make all the difference for setting the precedent for the year - of not only being big, being confident, but also creating a space where they're kind to and supportive of each other. And by the end of it, they are bonded. This is their community and they love each other forever. And then… you take them to Disneyland and it's amazing!
HA:
Cherry on top, right? So beautiful! Because I wasn't expecting where you were going with the story. I could guess the part about being big. But I hadn't thought of how critical it is that your peers are supporting that because otherwise, it could feel embarrassing in the studio. Of course, the public, you know, won't be shaming you on the stage. They will be entertained. But that could potentially happen during rehearsals with children in a peer group where you could have snickering or something that would burst the whole bubble.
CG:
Oh, yeah. And at middle school? Middle school's rough. This has to be a place where they're safe, you know? They have to have one place. And I love that moment when parents come to me and say, you know,"Sarah is doing a fantastic job and I'm sure the show is going to be great, but that's not the point. I don't care what role she plays. I like the way that she comes home happy every day. I like the way that she wants to be here. I like the way that she rushes to the car and can't wait for me to get her to rehearsal, even though her friends are at school, because this is her happy place". And that's the goal: creating a space where the kids can be happy and safe.
“The goal is to create a space where the kids can be happy and safe.”
HA:
Yeah, that is seriously my number one goal as a parent as well. I don't know if it sounds like you have any challenges. But let's go there. What have been the biggest challenges of starting and running your own business so far? And what are you doing to overcome them?
CG:
Oh so many! There's not enough hours in the day. There's 1000 things to do. My first big challenge was that we officially opened and six months later COVID hit so…
HA:
Oh yeah, just a little challenge.
CG:
We have a company that's entirely based on people showing up but suddenly we still had a rent to pay but we weren't allowed to open our doors and bring people inside. So we had 11 months total, over the course of I think 14 months, where we were completely shut down. And then we had several months of being open, but out on our patio. So we actually used the outdoor space and we set up some curtains and brought in space heaters and kept blowing out our power over and over again with our space heaters and our speakers. But we taught outdoor classes in masks in the cold on the patio. We also had a lot of classes that we were teaching over Zoom, and it worked out. But it was financially very, very difficult as the beginning of a business. And for someone who isn’t apt at video editing, trying to put on shows through Zoom was a challenge. But we were able to at least provide a space for our musical theater kids to feal part of a community and continue seeing each other - even if it was just on Zoom. And then our little dance classes, the little kids out on the patio with the little sparkly outfits, putting on our little Christmas shows - but in puffy jackets in the cold outside. It was an interesting experience. But we got through it. And so I really count that a year and a half ago was when we really opened our business. And as we were really opening our doors fully and taking masks off, we found we had this pandemic clientele who trusted us already. And so we grew really fast. And now we have five different elements of the business. We have the dance studio, and the competitive dance kids. We have the musical theater program, and then the competitive musical theater kids. And then we have a school program that goes into schools and teaches after school programs. And all of that is sort of exploding all at the same time during this past year that we’ve had our doors open. I'd say the biggest challenge now is keeping up with all of that growth as one manager. I have this incredible team. I have a really wonderful staff working for me and we are growing at a ridiculously rapid rate. We just hired another teacher yesterday. And now we have over 10 staff members. And we're still trying to find enough hours in the day to get everything done.
HA:
Yeah, I don't think there's a bigger challenge possible than COVID for dance and theater studios. Especially right when you're opening! That is so intense. What was the best piece of business advice you were given when you started?
CG:
It wasn't a piece of advice exactly, but something I learned from a studio owner for whom I worked many years ago, was to invest in your staff. A happy, long-term teacher who wants to be there for a long time is the best thing you can do for a business like mine. So I trust my staff completely. They are amazing people and incredible professionals. And I try to give them the space to be creative and to do what they want with their classes within reason. And I pay them well, take care of them and trust them.. And they pay me back with their loyalty and by building positive relationships with our families where the kids want to run up and hug their teachers. So I think taking good care of your employees is the best thing you can do as a business owner.
HA:
I love that. My dad's an entrepreneur as well and I worked for him for 14 years and I feel like that's what I learned most from that experience as well. I watched how much love he would pour into his staff and how they were all so loyal as a result. We had almost no turnover. I wasn't planning to ask this but based on your skyrocketing growth, are you going to hit max capacity soon based on building size or hours in the day? Or what does that look like?
CG:
That's a great question. I hope no, I mean, at some point, we’d probably run out of physical space. But we are negotiating with our landlord to take over the space next door to ours right now. And it is a large studio space. So it could turn into one more large performance venue. So yes, I think there is a capacity but I don't think we're anywhere near hitting that yet. One of the things that's been blowing up the most is offering the after school programs. So we're not limited by space when we're at schools; we're just limited by the number of teachers we have.
HA:
So you currently offer after-school programs somewhere?
CG:
Yes, we're actually about to do Snow White. Not only the three classes in our own school, but at several other schools around the Bay Area.
HA:
Oh, okay. Cool. That's definitely a smart way to scale with no building limitations. Speaking of buildings - was the infrastructure already there when you took over your current space? I know your building from the outside, but I haven't yet been inside and I don't understand how you turn that into a theater. It must be some kind of magical transformation!
CG:
I would love to show you some time. I have been planning this space for about 10 years before I opened it. I've had sketches in every notebook I own. When I would get bored sitting in a class in college, I'd be sketching how I'd want to design it. So I had a pretty good idea in my head of how I wanted it to look. And I toured a whole bunch of different places. When I was finally ready to open my business, I made a lot of mock ups for the different spaces as I saw them, but when I walked into this last space, it just clicked. I went, "Okay, I'm going to knock that door down, we're going to take this out, we're going to put mirrors over here, we'll put rollers down there, this is where the seats will go, this is the dressing room; we'll use these doors as exit." Everything just kind of clicked, but I think it was because I had been designing 10 different versions of it in my head for years. So the way our space looks, there are three units and they they line up back to back, three units in one line, essentially. The front one is Studio A and that's broken up into a lobby, and then our main largest dance room. For a performance, that space turns into the audience. There are risers built into the wall that pull out, and chairs that come up, transforming it into a 99-seat theater. And then there's a mirrored wall between that room and the next room, which is our Studio B. That's another dance room on rehearsal days. But for performances, Studio B becomes a stage. When performers are rehearsing, they face this mirrored wall, but because it’s on wheels, we can actually swing the mirrors open so that the wall disappears and our performers are suddenly facing a real audience instead, which is really kind of wonderful.
HA:
Oh my gosh! That's so cool.
CG:
And then what we call ‘the wings’ space on either side of the stage is very, very small. But actors can exit through one of the doors and go to the back in the dressing room and have plenty of space because that third room, Studio C, is just a dressing room. We use that as our storage space as our dressing room space and where our kids get ready before classes. We invested a lot of money into a contractor building the risers so they can pull out and meet every fire safety standard. And we invested even more money into putting real professional theatrical curtains up so it is a fully functional theater that is professionally rented out to other spaces as well. It's got full professional sets of curtains with tracks on which we can hang different backdrops. There are the pulleys to pull the curtains open and closed and there are anchors in the ceiling too. I think I have 12 anchors that can hold weight. So when we did Mary Poppins we could fly her in the air, or you can hang swings from it and swing! I'm about to do Peter Pan. And we'll have all kinds of ladders and things hanging from the ceiling in the Lost Boys Hangout. And there are hanging microphones. And we have 16 real theatrical lights set up to actually have a full light and sound system. And we have a booth built in the very front corner behind the lobby when you first walk in, where the techs sit, and watch the show from there while they run all the lights and sound. So it's a pretty professional space. It's small, but it works out really nicely.
HA:
That's incredible. It kind of sounds like you already have a dream team, but I was gonna ask you, if you could hire a dream employee to help you with one thing? What's the thing you need help with most at this moment?
CG:
More help on the admin side. There's a lot of administrative work to be done in running a studio. And I have had an amazing employee already, but I could always use more help with a dream employee who could both do admin work and is warm and friendly and welcoming to students as they arrive. And who is a wizard with advertising, because advertising is always the key.
HA:
Yeah, that kind of folds into my next question. What are the top three things someone should consider before starting their own business? And also, looking back, what do you wish you'd known? I think these things may naturally overlap.
CG:
Everything costs more than you think it will. Everything is three times more expensive than you think it is because there are just always problems you can't predict. And there's always little things you didn't budget for that add up to big things - things like when building a wall, you might budget out how much it costs to build that wall, but not how much it costs to keep repainting that wall every time little kids' feet are on it. Or how much it costs to get permits to be able to put those walls up.
HA:
It's funny, because I always tell people, everything takes three times longer than you anticipated.
CG:
That is definitely fair. I definitely had this amazing team of people helping me and I just got lucky in having a lot of friends who helped me put floors in and everything else. So the timing actually wasn't that bad. It was just building up the space. I didn't expect how much advertising I was going to have to do. Advertising is harder than you think it is and it is a constant game.
Oh and I’d add that growth is so unpredictable. You can plan as much as you want but you never know when a worldwide pandemic is going to hit six months after you've opened your business. Or when a little after school program that you planned to be a simple little extra will suddenly explode and bring 10 schools in in one semester. So growth can go both ways so quickly. So be prepared for very slow growth, but also be prepared for the fact that huge growth can happen really, really fast when you least expect it.
HA:
Yeah, running a business, I’ve noticed that you never know exactly what's going to click for people. Like sometimes I'll offer something I think is amazing and nobody's interested. And then I'll offer something that I'm not sure about, and everybody's into it.
CG:
Absolutely. Yeah.
HA:
Not being able to predict human behavior is probably a big one.
CG:
Yeah, definitely.
HA:
What are your goals going forward or next steps you'd like to do with your company?
CG:
I want to open that second space next to us. I'd love someday to actually just own my own space instead of renting. That would be amazing but I don't know where the perfect location is yet. We'll see. Maybe it'll come up when it's right when the time is right. Someday, I'd love to open a second location as well. But right now, just continuing on the same track we're on right now, filling our classes up. Right now we're still, we're still a newish dance studio and our musical theater classes are very full. But our dance classes are still small and still growing. And while the quality is high - our dancers are fantastic, and my teachers do an amazing job of teaching them, our numbers are still somewhat small. I'd also love to partner with someone that would offer something earlier in the day, maybe a Zumba program or a yoga program, or maybe something I've never even thought of. Because we have this beautiful space open in the midday mornings that just kind of goes unused for a while.
HA:
That's a really good idea. I’ll keep my eyes out. What is one thing you'd want new business owners to know?
CG:
Don't underestimate the value of having an amazing team around you and trusting them.
HA:
That's great. And what is one thing you'd want longtime business owners to know?
CG:
Don't get trapped in the mindset of “this is how we've always done it, so we're going to continue doing it this way”. Sometimes the best opportunities come when you open yourself up to new ideas. changes and growth within your community.
HA:
I love that. And is there anything I didn't ask that you were dying to share?
CG:
A fun fact is that I grew up in this area and I actually went to preschool at the school across the street from where my studio is now. So coming full circle back to my own hometown and opening a program right here is pretty amazing. And just that the community we’ve built truly enjoys being there together. Kids want to grow up there and be there all the time. And because we’ve scheduled everything so that it doesn’t overlap or contradict, siblings can take multiple classes and everything fits. We have two siblings, for example, Kylie and Caden. They're both in our musical theater and our dance classes. They're both on the dance team. And their parents love that they get to drop the kids off at the same location every day, and that there's no conflicts between the different activities. We also made a point of building a space that's specifically in a shopping center that allows for parents to take a break and stay nearby or get errands done. Even if their kids are only with us for 45 minutes, there's a massage studio next door that does 30 minute foot massages, or there's a laundry, Starbucks across the street, or Safeway, right in the same shopping center.
HA:
Those are great things to mention, and I'm glad you did. Well, that's all I've got for you. So wonderful to learn about the backstory and see how you've brought all the gifts that were given to you as a child full circle. And I'm really excited to enroll my own kids! So thrilled you opened up so close to our neighborhood!
CG:
Thank you so much and I’d be delighted to welcome your kids into our classes!
You can learn more about Chelsea Gaskin and Starlight Dance Studios and Theater below:
On The M List; https://www.themamahood.co/the-m-list/listings/564
Website: https://dancewithstarlight.com/
Registration for Spring Classes is now open through next week!
Reg now for Dance, Cheer and Gymnastics Classes: https://dancewithstarlight.com/dance-classes-spring
Reg now for Musical Theater Classes: https://dancewithstarlight.com/signup