Introducing Peyton Kennedy

Showing up to the Attic Ensemble Theater in Jersey City, I walk into a building that doubles as a meeting place for AA. Not entirely sure what to expect, I walk onto a small dark stage. I find my writer, Jeff Theodore interviewing a young girl and her mother in a corner of the Attic.

"So what if this acting thing doesn't work out for you?" Jeff asks the young girl. "Do you have any other back up plan?" Later on that night I call Jeff out on that one.

This girl is sociopath killer, or at least she plays one in a production of Bad Seed by Maxwell Anderson and based upon the novel by William March. In a cast composed entirely of actors over 25, Peyton Kennedy holds a leading role at 10-years-old. She is extremely talented.

Holding up the entire cast from rehearsal, I rush and snap a few frames of Peyton.

"Give me the face you act out in your favorite scene."

Peyton scrunches up her nose and lowers her head. A dark glow surrounds her otherwise innocent face. "This is the face I make when my mother finds out I'm a murderer," she tells me.

Back at the office I look over the quick 25 frames I took. In what was a time crunch, I see a diverse range of emotions and characters in young Peyton. I think to myself, "This one's going into the movies". I also think back and kind of wish I had given her mother my card.