This past week at De Soto High School, drama teacher Jason Hagg and a lot of the school actors performed the spring play, The Night of January 16th, in which sophomore Ben Pickert had one of the lead roles.

Pickert has been in six De Soto School District drama productions.

“I was backstage in sixth grade, I acted in seventh and eighth grade, freshman year I was just in the play, The Locker Next 2 Mine, and this year, sophomore year, I was in the musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and the play, The Night of January 16th,” Pickert said.

With being the lead in a theater production, hard work and fun go hand-in-hand.

“It was a lot of fun, everyone was really nice, but it was very stressful as you can imagine. I went through [the script for The Night of January 16] and counted, I had 252 lines, give or take a few, and that is counting my huge monologues at the beginning and the end of the script as one line. That aspect of it is very stressful, but overall, it was extremely fun,” Pickert said.

In The Night of January 16th, the audience played a role as the jury, so the play had two different endings, depending on whether the jury found Karen Andre innocent or guilty.

“I didn’t actually speak in either of the endings, so that was very helpful for me. After my closing arguments, I did not speak again, so it was mainly just motion acting,” Pickert said.

Pickert has a preference towards certain types of scenes.

“There are particular scenes that are more fun to do than others, and in this particular show [The Night of January 16th], there is one part where I am screaming at Karen Andre, just in her face, which is a blast every single time,” Pickert said.

Not that he has anything against junior Sydney Hoover, who played Karen Andre, Pickert also stated.

“The [scenes] where I get to be up and active and physical are so much fun,” Pickert said.

Being an actor, while great, is also difficult at times.

“For one, making sure that you know your lines, especially the bigger the part, the harder that gets. Another hard thing is knowing specifically what to do when you are not talking. When we were rehearsing for the play, Hagg was drilling me and Jack Torline on how we should walk around the stage and how to hold ourselves. So figuring out what you are going to do beyond the lines is also difficult,” Pickert said.