Meet Jonothon Lyons | Writer/Performer/Content Creator known as Buddy the Rat” “

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jonothon Lyons and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonothon, why did you pursue a creative career?
I was very fortunate to be born into a family where artistic pursuits and creative expression were encouraged and supported. My father was not so lucky and had to fight his whole life against conventional pressure to find more stable work than that of an independent artist. He and my mother made it clear to my siblings and me when we were very young that we were free to choose the life we wanted to live come what may. I took a very strong liking to theater and live performance around age 9 and basically decided then that was what I would spend my life doing. I took my training seriously, attended a performing arts high school (Arizona School for the Arts), went to ASU on an acting scholarship, moved to New York after, and started finding jobs as a performer. My primary motivation has always been to pursue what moves me and trust that the resources will emerge to support that pursuit. Over time I’ve become much more business minded and I’m working very hard to establish a sustainable and robust business model around the creative work I do now. Thanks to the prevalence of Social Media and its relationship to modern advertising, there are finally opportunities for someone in my position to make a good living from an independent art project like Buddy the Rat.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’ve always been interested in many different areas of artistic expression (acting, music, writing, sculpting, puppetry, masks, etc.) and for a long time I was concerned that by spreading my time out in moderate pursuit of many things I’d not become sufficiently good at any one to achieve great success. Then I created my street performance character Buddy the Rat and realized immediately that I could never have done that without a general knowledge of many different crafts. I may not be the best at any of the various individual things I can do, but I am the best at being Buddy the Rat. So now I’m comfortable identifying myself as a generalist and pursuing ideas that best make use of a confluence of skills.

One important reason why I think the project has been successful is that widespread appeal was never a part of my plan with it. I created this character and this performance purely because it interested me personally. The character and the way I present it is an authentic expression of my interests and unique approach to creativity and artwork. This journey has not at all been easy. The work takes an enormous amount of physical energy to perform and a lot of resources to produce. It has taken a long time to find the most effective ways to grow resources since the heart of the project is essentially a free public performance. I stick with it and get through the challenging periods because I faith that those resources will emerge. My social accounts keep growing and I keep receiving positive feedback so I’m just following these signs toward whatever future outcome awaits me.

The central message of the piece is to hi-light universal commonalities among people all over the world. My dream is to travel the world as Buddy and document the audience reactions across cultures. I believe there will be strong similarities that cut through the illusion of difference that things like language, clothing, and food can sometimes cause. I believe we are all one global community and should have universal compassion for all people as if they were a part of our immediate family.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Visit Central Park, go on The Ride (@theridenyc) for a great mid-town tour experience, go see Sleep No More and Blue Man Group (I was in both shows), and be sure to get a slice of pizza!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’ll recognize the good fortune I had to attend high school at Arizona School for the Arts in Phoenix, AZ. This was the mid-90’s and charter schools were somewhat controversial but my Mother wanted me to have the best arts education possible so we found ASA. I cannot overstate the value of the education I received there. Our Drama Director Ron Bonnani was relentless in embedding within us a strong work ethic and uncompromising commitment to pushing ourselves to our highest potential. At the time it felt overwhelming – very long hours, physically exhausting set building, mind numbing academic script analysis – but having now lived the professional real world experience I can see how well prepared for it I was because of his programming. I’ve no doubt I would never have made it this far without that early introduction to how hard it would be.

Website: jonothonlyons.com

Instagram: @jonothonlyons

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonothon-lyons-a92b36a

Twitter: @jonothonlyons

Facebook: @buddytheratnyc

Youtube: Jonothon Lyons @jonothonlyons

Other: TikTok @jonothonlyons

Image Credits
Laredo Montoneri, Andreas Verrios, Ukmaracaibo