Gamblank Musikal Teater - A Destiny of A Man

GMT, Gamblank Musical Theatre (Gamblank Musikal Theater), as its name, is a theater group that specialized on musical play performances, with the local culture symbols. It’s founded in April 13th 2005, after the some of the senior members of SEKRUP (the theater organization in UNY/Yogyakarta University) who were graduated and finished their studies, were forbid to join as the official members. It was Didik Adi Sukmoko, or mostly known as M. Ahmad Jalidu, his staged name, the leader of this theater organization along with the first 15 members, opened the way to the graduates (or the non-graduates who want to join) who still loves to act in play, fulfilling their dreams. It’s obvious that the passion of Didik and his fellow friends in theater are strong, since in the end of year, GMT will perform their newest play, “Nyanyian Rimbayana“.



However, Didik never knew that he would devote his life in theatre, further it’s a musical theatre, when he was young until he was a new student in UNY. Didik, born at April 18th 1979, was studying in Chemistry, the faculty of Science since 1997. Didik has already like art, but only for the music, not for theatre. He was in the band at that time, getting so much influence from the famous band such as Dewa 19. It’s funny that the origin of Didik’s staged name, Ahmad Jalidu, is a parody name from Ahmad Dhani, the member of Dewa 19, which given by his friend at that time.



Furthermore, Didik was chosen to be the leader of new coming Art Organization in his faculty, well, ‘forced’ actually since he wasn’t getting into that at the first but his friends ‘tricked’ him to signed that. However, this is the reason why Didik got involved in theatre for the first time. It was in 1999, when the theatre division under the organization, SEKRUP, should perform for the “Welcoming of the New Students” event in his faculty. Due to the less of the performers, Didik was ‘forced again’ to join this performance. He may not the main actors, but this experience has allowed him to feel the something that made him choose to join in theatre, the feel when acted in the stage, the feel to be watched by audiences.



In 2000, in the lacks of theatre’s lecture, Didik was ‘forced again’ to be the leader of SEKRUP. Inexperienced in theater, Didik joined in other theatre group outside SEKRUP and learned the knowledge of theatre to be used for his own group. His effort also made him to choose the musical theatre, as the other group where he joined in was performing musical theatre, because it’s more entertaining for ordinary people, the audiences.



He was in SEKRUP until 2004, where he ended his study, which also made him not an official member of SEKRUP anymore. However, he and some friends were still passionable to act in play, on the stage, like they used to in SEKRUP. GMT was their answer. In the same year after GMT was founded, they performed “Panggil Aku Aziza”, wrote by Didik himself. Unfortunately, as the non-students performers anymore, they realized that their time was not as free as before. They need to work, since the art performances in Indonesia are not as respected as the big countries in Europe or America. Didik stated that they should lower their passion to be just hobby, an act that the other artists may see as a ‘cowardly’, but Didik realized that for now there’s no other way.



According to that, Didik always have a dream when this country will respect the art works as much as they worth. Sometimes people can’t respect the hard works from the performers in order to make a very good performance. He also wanted to change that the theatre should be heavy, by focusing of the entertainment part of a play. He believes that a play should give a moral message, but not in the level where the audiences feel intimidated, so they always feel comfortable to watching upcoming play. Those are his dreams for now and he also said that he will not give up and will always produce another entertaining works with Gamblank Musical Theatre. (Gitaryan De Valdo – Student of English Literature, Sanata Dharma University - 084214052).