"Art takes time—Monet grew his gardens before he painted them" -Atticus, a poet.

And this particular one sure as heck took some time. Jas Merah, the story of a young man crushed under the heavy expectations of becoming the next Bupati, all while secretly living a double life as a thief. Our journey with Jas Merah started 8 months ago in August of last year and it almost started life as a short film but it was quickly changed to a theatrical performance (it's also a musical).

I like writing but I wasn't involved in creating the story or writing the script for this project since at the time I was busy doing a whole other thing (animation) but even so, I still learned a whole lot from working on Jas Merah like acting and singing.

It was not my first time performing in front of an audience but it was my first time acting in a theatrical setting, which felt different in its own way. Acting isn't just reading from a script but it's also studying and understanding the character you're playing. Singing isn't really my thing but working on this project has helped me gain some confidence in my abilities .

We practiced a lot, more specifically twice a week for 8 months and I think it paid off. We performed Jas Merah twice, once in December when it was still unfinished and once more in April. With more than a hundred people watching, tons of merch sold, and the great performance done by everyone resulting in a very satisfying ending. Either that, or we were all exhausted lol.

Making merch was pretty fun.