This is one of Mr. Smith’s favorites!

Whenever Ridgewood students are in rehearsal with Mr. Smith, you can very often hear him enthusiastically yelling “NEW CHOICE” from behind the rehearsal door.

The concept is as simple as the game’s name: an actor must make a new, fresh and different choice for their character, whether it’s in the way she delivers a line, interacts with another character or behaves, whenever the phrase “New Choice” is uttered.

The line “where are you going” can be said in an infinite number of ways: for example, it can be urgent, enticing, angry, somber, playful, etc. etc. etc.  And from the other character’s seemingly simple reply “home,” the audience should be able to intuit whether this character wants to leave, doesn’t want to leave, and how they feel about what they’re saying.

We don’t always say what we’re really thinking in real life, so why should a stage character?  The words in a dialogue are just the top layer of a character’s strata – “New Choice” becomes an invaluable tool for actors to dig deeper and deeper into their character’s humanity by opening up new, creative options beyond an actor’s initial interpretation of that top layer.