Hi Eagles!
This year’s school production was definitely one of the highlights of this academic year, with the famous musical fantasy film, “Aladdin”, originally created by Antoine Galland in 1704. It is the first one ever since the Covid-19 pandemic that pushed us to limit interactions and activities. A school production is an annual event where all four art subjects that are taught in Sekolah Ciputra (drama, music, visual arts, and dance) collaborate to present a live performance. This inevitably involves a large number of student and teacher volunteers to make the performance successful.
Drama shapes the cast’s acting skills and guides them to nurture the elements of drama, such as emotion, expression, body language, etc. This connects to the musical aspects of the production as student and teacher musicians need to play various instruments to support the cast’s movements on stage. Not forgetting the importance of stage properties, the school production will not be as lively as it should be without the help from the subject of visual arts. In addition, dance is an important element in the school production—highlighted in several scenes—where some of the cast actually perform a group dance together. Eventually, it takes a large group of people to create such a wonderful performance.
The teams involved are the cast (the actors and actresses), the musicians, the SF (special forces) crew (mainly in charge of the stage properties), the makeup team, costume team, multimedia team, promoters, the dancers and dance instructors, the awards and certificates team, the risk management team, the consent and permission team, the health and safety team, and the consumption team.
(The SF crew, cast, dancers, singers, make up team, and teacher volunteers posing after the performance)
The OSIS Public Relations department interviewed the two main characters featured in the musical fantasy “Aladdin”: Jasmine and Aladdin himself. Aladdin (played by Christian Chang Soetijono) is a caring, common thief while Jasmine (played by Aurysia Thea Evelynn Santoso) is the princess of Agrabah.
Christian is a Grade 10 student who, in the play, took on the role of Aladdin. However, he states that he “didn’t audition for Aladdin”. He initially aimed to play Jafar, the antagonist of the play. “But with recommendations from the cast recruitment and Ms. Niken, she told me that I would be more suitable for the character of Aladdin, therefore I agreed to her suggestion and took the role,” said Christian. He admitted that his biggest challenge was to remember the script for his character, as Aladdin is present in all 14 scenes of the play. He also noted that time management became more challenging since he had to stay after school to rehearse a specific scene for which his character is present.
But after experiencing such events, he learned how much responsibility he needed to hold as the main character of the play. He stated, “As an actor, if I forget my lines or mistiming, it will affect the other actors’ or actresses’ performances.” Being one of the main characters puts a lot of strain on himself but having that much pressure had enhanced his ability to overcome the challenges of working under pressure, he acknowledged. He even used a witty analogy that the “pressure you put on yourself at times is more than the pressure you would experience if you were taking a summative exam.” Above all, Christian strongly recommended students to take the lead role for the next school production just as he did this year as he saw it as a great way to grow one’s time management, communication, and drama skills. With the experience that he had, tips that he gave to students are to always put in the most effort and use your time wisely to smoothen out any visible imperfections during your rehearsal.
(The official promotional poster for the Aladdin School production)
We would like to share Aurysia’s experience as Princess Jasmine in this year’s school production. “I have always wanted to do something way out of my comfort zone, as I have never performed in such a lengthy production as this one,” she said. Aurysia originally auditioned for the role of one of the shopkeepers but was offered to audition for Jasmine. “I auditioned to be a shopkeeper, however Ms. Niken suggested that I audition for Jasmine,” she states. Aurysia, too, went through the basic processes of acting and was faced with time-management issues that affected her role in the play. These time-management issues were said to have clashed with the flexibility of the government’s policies regarding COVID-19 and her own schedule, which affected the chemistry building with the rest of the cast. “It was also really hard to build the chemistry among the cast as the time was very limited.”
Aside from that, Aurysia learned how important her role was and the responsibility to justify it in the eyes of the audience and her fellow cast members. “Interdependence is key in this context and the show is only as great as the cast are,” she admitted. Her experience gave us an insight into what it feels like to challenge oneself as Aurysia’s motivation to participate in the school production was the will to try something new.
(From left to right: Rajah; Matthew Cokrojoyo, Aladdin; Christian Chang, Genie; Jefferson Tanto, Jasmine; Aurysia Santoso, Abu; Matthew Go)
We also interviewed two (2) of the many teachers that were a part of the school production: Mr. Sulton (Bahasa Indonesia Teacher) and Ms. Niken (Drama and English Teacher). This year, Mr. Sulton joined the school production as a co-director. He helped Ms. Niken train the cast members during rehearsals in order for them to improve their role-playing in terms of expression, gesture, and voices. Mr. Sulton received support from Ms. Niken and decided to join immediately instead of joining next year. He encouraged students to join so that they can feel the lively atmosphere, exciting challenges, and enjoy the process of the making of a school production. He believes that students can develop many skills, even ones they were previously unaware of, when joining the school production.
To Mr. Sulton, one of the greatest obstacles this year was the lack of direct practice time at school because of the pandemic, which necessitated online practice despite the critical need for in-person instruction. On a positive note, he expressed his appreciation for the cast’s rapid improvement when they were able to practice and meet in person at school. However, as a new teacher, he claimed that he did not know many of the cast members. This caused him a little discomfort, which subsided as practice sessions progressed. For students who plan to join the next year’s school production, Mr. Sulton’s advice would be to start with a passion for learning, not be afraid of self-expression, and be willing to play any role. His final message to anyone interested in joining next year’s school production is to not be shy, as they can improve their confidence level by continuing to practice and interact with each other.
Agreeing with Mr. Sulton, Ms. Niken talked about the significance of school production. Throughout the production journey, she was the director. She was responsible for all of the creative aspects and features that will be exhibited in the final live performance such as the cast’s acting, lighting, set and props, makeup, costumes, and the sound and music, alongside other teachers, based on their specialties. As an example, Mr. Himawan and Mr. Agus supervised the music department, Mr. Diko was in charge of arranging and creating the set and props, Ms. Yustina and Ms. Anita took responsibility for the costumes and makeup, and many more teachers supported Ms. Niken according to their various areas of expertise.
Furthermore, she describes the important long-term benefits of joining future school productions which can be advantageous for students as they are given an unfamiliar opportunity to explore their creativity and imagination. The thought of joining school production will also enhance social skills such as collaboration, communication, and self-management skills. These aspects are not only helpful in a school production but it is an important aspect that will help students adapt in school and possibly improve their versatility abilities. Apart from that, executing school production is not only a challenging task because of the overwhelming effort that will be put into it, but it is also hard for students to contribute in person due to the ongoing pandemic. During the rehearsals, they had a short period of time to prepare for the performance, which may not optimize the production. Hence, it was risky for the team to finalize the show. Additionally, students were inconsistent with attending the face-to-face rehearsals during the first two months of preparation for the school production. Despite that, the school production welcomes all students who are committed, hardworking, and resilient in both assisting and impacting the play.
(From left to right: Aladdin; Christian Chang, Sultan; Felix Robinson, Jasmine; Aurysia Santoso)
To add on, this article will, unfortunately, be the last article from OSIS Sekolah Ciputra 2021-2022 in this semester. We, the Public Relations team, would like to express our sincerest gratitude for you having spent your time reading our article. Thank you for your utmost support towards us during this academic year. It has been quite a memorable and lively challenge, considering the amount of events and competitions that were initiated and enjoyed together. It has been a great honor and pleasure to be able to plan, operate, document, and share these wonderful events with you. We hope that this academic year will motivate everyone to be able to do greater things in the future. Have a great summer break and see you next year!
This article was written by the OSIS Public Relations Team (Michael Sean Gunawan 11DP, Anastasia Lilananda 8C, Yumiko Giselle Suryadi 11DP, Felice Agnes 10C, Zidane Julio Junior 11UDP, & Bianca Purwadi 10B) and supervised by the OSIS team (Jefferson Tanto 11DP, Aurysia Santoso 11DP, Wenny WIbisono 11DP, Russell Liang 11DP, and Nadya Suryo Soetomo 11DP) and Mr. Rizal Rakhmat Dwianto
This article header was designed by the OSIS team (Patricius Stefan Muliyanto 11DP) and supervised by the OSIS Public Relations team (Michael Sean Gunawan 11DP)
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