Woods nails each performance

By EMILY WINTER

Staff Writer

From her well-known laugh to her charming personality, senior Emily Woods of Middletown starred as the Ghost of Christmas Present in this year’s winter play A Christmas Carol.

Woods has starred in three CHS plays thus far and began her acting career when she was six years old.  

“I started acting because I wasn’t good at a sport when I was younger, and my parents ran out of things to sign me up for,” Woods said. “So, I did a summer camp at the Red Bank Cultural Center.”

Woods has performed in over 16 plays in the past 12 years. Her roles range from Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz to Liesl Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Woods said she looks for more roles that evoke an emotional response in her audience.

“Whether I can make someone laugh or cry, it’s remarkable that something as silly and borderline stupid as pretending can move someone in some way. Plus, I’m naturally a very emotional person, so it kind of works,” Woods said.

Senior Maxwell DeGeorge of Tinton Falls has been alongside Woods during the production of multiple CHS plays. This year, he played the role of Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.

“It’s been so awesome watching her mature and develop her skills over the four years I’ve known her,” DeGeorge said. “If I were a freshman, I would want to be Emily Woods when I grow up. I still sometimes wish I had her confidence and wit.”

Woods hopes to pursue acting in the future. She is applying to the acting programs of Rutgers University, Emerson College, Pace University, and she will be the first CHS student to apply to Juilliard, she said.

As a proud feminist, Woods’s favorite play to act in was Lady Parts. This play, which Woods helped write, explores what it is like to be a woman in America.

I like acting because I really like art and I’m not actually good at drawing or anything like that. I love being able to make someone feel something,” Woods said.