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Taking the stage: Peyton works toward dream of a career in arts and animation

By Douglass Huxley 4 min read

ST. MARYS -- Soon-to-be St Marys junior Jack Peyton has so much creativity it explodes into his everyday life.

He taught himself how to play the clarinet and piano and now writes his own compositions, makes homemade puppets with his grandmother who taught him to sew, learned to tap dance and has even created his own cartoon character.

"I want to get into cartoons," Peyton said. "I've been starting to write my own scripts for an animated series. It follows Al Suckerman, an orange octopus, who works at this Chuck-E-Cheese type thing, it's not a Chuck-E-Cheese, but it's that type of general place, but I have so many plots written down."

Peyton said he's been animating since he was very young but got to animate some cartoons while taking a graphic design class at the Mid-Ohio Valley Technical Institute. He said he also took a class in digital imaging.

"I'm taking it again this year," Peyton said. "It was so much fun I had to take it again."

Peyton said he's picked up a lot of tricks in the classes to help make his animation process easier as he writes, produces, directs and even voices characters in his own shows.

"My favorite thing has to be the voice acting," Peyton said. "It's cool to see my characters kind of come to life, and go into animation."

Peyton said he enjoys getting members of the community to voice characters for him and that his father, Joseph Peyton, voices the role of Al Suckerman.

Peyton also gets to express his creativity on stage as a member of the theatre troupe at St Marys High School and the Actors Guild of Parkersburg (AGP). Peyton said he got his first role on stage as a fifth-grader when he played Scuttle in the AGP production of The Little Mermaid.

"Ever since then I've had such a great time in theatre," Peyton said.

Peyton said theatre has taught him how to write scripts and dialogue for his own cartoons and that he's glad he got into it. He said his favorite thing about theatre is getting to see the audience's reaction to the performances. He said he would describe himself as a character actor and that it helps him in his own creative endeavors.

"I like being the more goofy, like comical character, instead of the more serious characters," Peyton said. "It gives me focus on what I should do for my own cartoon."

Peyton said he is a huge fan of the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. He said he wants to play in the local version of the SpongeBob musical and that he got to see the Broadway showing of the cartoon in June of 2018. He said that he got to meet the voice actor of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny, but was too nervous to ask if he wanted to be a guest voice on his own cartoon.

"I was going to be like hey, 'Do you want to voice this, or do this?' but I was so nervous," Peyton said. "All I could get out was telling him my name, and that he is my idol."

Peyton said Kenny now follows him on Instagram and that he hopes he gets to meet his other idol from the show, Rodger Bumpass, who voices Squidward and maybe ask him if he'd like to be a guest voice actor in his own cartoon.

Peyton said he enjoys collecting memorabilia from his favorite shows and has an extensive collection from The Simpsons and SpongeBob. He said his favorite piece is an authentic animation cell of Squidward.

"Anytime I watch the episode now I pause it and I'm like, 'I have that, I own that.' I own 0.1% of SpongeBob," Peyton jokes.

Peyton isn't just creative but is also intelligent and helpful as he's a 4.0 student, a member of the Leo Club and STARS (Super Teens Achieving Regional Success) program.

"I love just helping people," Peyton said. "Anywhere really. Doesn't matter if they're super mean, I'll help them anyway."

Peyton said he hopes to attend Hudson University in New York after he graduates college.

"For animation and arts," Peyton said. "To further push my animation career. I'm going to start really working on my show. The script is done, I'm sending the script to the voice actors today, once that's all done I just have to animate and edit, and the first step is going to be done. I hope it's not like one of those things like Bluey, or something super popular, it's not going to get popular. I'm going to have to really push that it's a new thing that can be the next SpongeBob."

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