Teater Muzikal Perdana Selasehku Sayang

Mini report:

I was appointed as the president for our Theater class and the director for our program since among my classmates, I had more experience in acting in front of the camera and on stage besides being the backstage crew. Thanks to our "Penolong Pensyarah", Haji Ramlee bin Haji Salikon, or well known as "ayah", he taught us how the theater can be a tool to teach us life lessons and how we can be a family on that stage, since most of us came from different cultural backgrounds, races, and beliefs. There were students from Semenanjung Malaysia including myself, comprising of Malays, Chinese, Indians, and some students from Sabah and Sarawak, Indonesia, Arab, and Africa.

It was quite hard to communicate with them, especially with the foreign students. It took me about more than a month to connect with them and made them respond to me as they eventually believed in me. Since our classmate numbers were not enough just to become crews, we had to do an open audition for casts- there we found many great talent and great voices. As I wanted to meet ayah's wish to make the theater happen musically, we looked for main actor and actress who can actually sing together with instrumentalists. Months after private practices, I watched them grow.

My casts were willing to spend their night time to come for practices, to learn "silat" for fighting scenes, to sacrifice a lot more for this program. I got Laura (student from Africa) to join and learn Zapin with a few other Indonesian girls, it was so refreshing to see! I got Ahmed (student from Africa) and Sarim (student from Arab) to play the kompang as casts besides as technical crews. My other members, Yusril (vice president), Ain (secretary), Joel (publisher), Aidiel (treasurer), Hayati, Faiq, Natrah, Moy, Gan, and other more exco members were greatly helpful. They made this performance happened and I really could not do anything without them.

Budget meetings were painful. We could not get the fund that we needed, so we cancelled our plan to have the theater at the auditorium. Instead, we collaborated with CCSL for the "Sambutan Hari Kokurikulum" where we could use their Pavilion that had this classic look which fits our theme.

On that night of the performance, I could not be any prouder. Even with some technical issues (the wireless microphones kept going off), the actors, actresses, and my crew were so calm and handled everything so well. Everything went so smoothly, and the audience kept growing and gave the best reaction that I was not expecting for. The performance ended with big applause- I cried.

Reflection:

I learn that patience is not the only thing that would make things work. Sometimes, a little stern behavior is the only thing that would make people listen to you, even if it means that they would not like you very much. It is difficult to be in charged and to be likable at the same time because you got to tell people to do things that they might not want to do, especially when that group of people came from many different cultural backgrounds. I learn it the hard way. Now I know that I cannot force people to do things that they do not want to do, but I have to make them want to do it. It is still unclear to me how could I have done differently. I know now that it does not take different cultural background to make people act differently, because people are already different even if they came from the same mother. I could say this because in the end, I actually became good friends with the students from Indonesia, Africa, Arab, Sarawak, and Sabah more than my own Semenanjung classmates. I also learn that I cannot do it all, and I have to let some of it go sometimes, for other people to handle and trust them with it. It is something that I am not used to (because I am such a control freak), but I will try. Everything will always turn out better when you are working in a group.