Marion High School Speech & Drama Association presents a Hoosier story, ‘The Diviners’

Marion High School Speech & Drama Association’s spring play may have a familiar feel to it. “The Diviners” is set in the small (but mythical) town of Zion, Ind., the citizens of which have plans and goals and visions of a better day for their town.
 
But though the town is filled with good intentions, their hopes run into tragic circumstances, and leave the townspeople with more questions than answers. Audiences will find plenty to think about and identify with in this moving, emotional story as well.
 
“The Diviners” was written in the early 1980s by Jim Leonard Jr., who was born in Fort Wayne, graduated from Hanover College (where “The Diviners” was first produced) and for a time lived in Bloomington, where he co-founded the Bloomington Playwrights Project. He also has long been instrumental in the New Harmony Project, an influential Indiana playwriting workshop.
 
The play won him first prize at the National College Theater Festival. (Incidentally, Woody Harrelson, at the time a freshman at Hanover, was cut from the cast of “The Diviners”!)
 
Leonard has also been involved with movies and TV shows, including Dexter, for which he was nominated in 2011 for a Writers Guild Award as a consulting producer.