While often I share that everybody has a story to tell, I also clarify that everybody doesn’t know how to tell their story the way that Pickett Line Productions knows how to.   Maya Anglelou talked about people not remembering what you said or did, but more readily recalling how you made them feel.  Pickett Line Productions moves audiences with our plays because they stimulate emotional memories and promote empathetic encounters.   Hence, I lean toward gratitude in being able to encourage the community to allow Pickett Line Productions to assist them with telling their stories because I had special mentors in my life who guided me toward a unique way telling stories as a playwright/screen writer.  
It obviously started with my mother, Bonnie Lee Pickett, who shared with special people in our lives that while I announced that my interest was to become a veterinarian, she knew the calling on my life to become a theater professional.  My mother provided the love that would get me past poverty and oppressive environments to the attention of educators at Lafeyette and Harvey Rice Elementary Schools, to Audubon and Charles A. Mooney Junior High Schools, and then to John Adams High School as well as to the College of Wooster and Case Western Reserve University.
My appreciation is extended also to Ms. Jane Coleman who provided afterschool opportunities with the Drama Communications Association, D.C.A., at John Adams High School.   She not only inspired me, but motivated so many of my classmates who ventured into the field of “Edutainment.”  Next, there were Ms. Carrie A. R. Reeves and Ms. Jacqueline Gholson, who guided my course through the Upward Bound Program at Case Western Reserve University.  They found the time to take a group of students who were studying to enter the medical profession on a field trip to see Jennifer Holiday in Dreamgirls on Broadway in New York.  The rest after my best friend, Antoine Hudson, and I sat next to each other and sung all the songs in that production back to Cleveland is what made history.
The nurturing care that I received from Annetta Gomez-Jefferson during the time that I was a student at the College of Wooster advanced me into the M.F.A. Program in Acting at Case Western Reserve University.  I eventually learned that Annetta also utilized her network to open doors that allowed me a chance to work with Dr. Howard A. Mims.  She had previously worked with his wife, A. Grace Lee Mims, in the library at Glennville High School, and brought my interests and talents to her attention.  After Dr. Mims hired me as his assistant to coordinate programs for the African American Cultural Center, he began to call me his “Dynamo.” I was his “Dynamo” because of the way that I tirelessly produced theatrical productions at Cleveland State University that credited the Black Studies Program under his direction with a unique way of sharing the legacy of African Americans with others.
Dr. Mims recruited me to work with him while I was employed as a Learning Specialist who had advanced to becoming an Assistant Director for the Minority Scholars Program (MSP) to Educational Support Services (ESS) at Case Western Reserve University.  It wasn’t hard for me to consider stopping out of their American Studies Ph.D. program with All But Dissertation (ABD) status because of my interests in being engaged with the Black experience in a way that only Dr. Mims could have afforded during that time in Cleveland, Ohio.  Plus, I had already acquired an M.F.A. and was prepared with that terminal degree to start my work in the academy.  Dr. Mims hired me and empowered me to produce a variety of theatrical projects through the Black Studies Program and the African American Cultural Center that would later be named in his honor.  Besides, how else would I have otherwise met his nephews, Spike and Malcolm Lee?
Otherwise, it was the Director of the Cleveland Treatment Center, Mr. Emizie Abbott who allowed me to work with his assistant to his assistant, Mr. Len Collins.  It was Len Collins who consistently engaged my work on a professional level and regularly afforded opportunities for me to get my plays produced through grants from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health.  Working with Mr. Collins, who eventually took on the role as the Director of the Cleveland Treatment Center, allowed me to gain special recognition as a playwright who specialized in writing plays about legendary Clevelanders and producing works that addressed various health and social issues that I had either experienced, observed, or studied.  
Outside of the institutions of higher learning that groomed my skills as a playwright, director, producer, and set designer, I must thank God for the Black churches and pastors that ministered to me and directed me to minister to others with my gifts.  The path that I followed by following Jesus Christ took me from Christian Tabernacle with Reverend Bill Sawyer to Starlight Baptist Church with Reverend Edward Small.  During my studies at CWRU I was blessed to grow at Open Door Missionary Baptist Church with Reverend Benjamin Franklin and Pastor Joseph Hopkins.  Becoming one with the love of my life, Bertha Lee Pickett, advanced us through St. Timothy Missionary Baptist Church with Reverend Tyree Williams, who united us in holy matrimony.  We were then led to Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church.  At Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, which later became Mt. Sinai Friendship United Church, Pastors C. J. Matthews and Jacqueline Matthews taught me about writing the vision (Habakuk 2:2).  I then moved my family to Olivet Institution Baptist Church where Reverend Otis Moss, Jr. said to me, “welcome home” and sermons and ministry opportunities with Pastor Jawanza Colvin gave me the security to realize the magnitude in the greater works that could be accomplished through the employment of the gifts that God had given me.  Additionally, Reverend Sam Tidmore became my mentor and engaged me with the work that he was doing with Village T.V., while Melvin Pyles invested in the production of my first film, Harambee House, and regularly supported my theatrical ventures.
Overall, in the body of Christ, it is the love of my life, Bertha Lee Pickett, who has given me approaching 40 years of support and two sons to help us develop Pickett Line Productions.  Our modest abode in Cleveland Heights, Ohio became the workshop where our thriving family operation manages my intellectual properties.  Our home is where we also share a vision to highlight Cleveland area talent in productions that are ready to travel across the nation and around the world.  Hence, it is the Pickett family and Prince Hall F & AM family that empowers my works to join with other efforts to build Greater Cleveland and Cuyahoga County as an “Edutainment” Mecca.
Meanwhile, I look forward to being a servant who is worthy of his hire and ready, willing, and able to assist you with telling your stories that can address social issues and impact individuals, families, and neighborhoods.  To God be the glory!
Peace.
Harambee,
Prester Pickett, M.F.A.
President/C.E.O.,
Pickett Line Productions