Del Mar Drama presents comedic drama, The Diviners, with production running March 3-7
Article by: Rosa Linda Reynoso
A traumatized teenage boy and a disillusioned preacher are both transformed by their unlikely friendship. Playwright Jim Leonard, Jr.’s haunting yet beautiful comedic drama, The Diviners, will have you laughing one moment and crying the next.
Del Mar Drama presents this powerful production Tuesday through Saturday, March 3-7, beginning at 7:30 p.m. each evening in Bartlett Theatre, which is located in the Fine Arts Center on the DMC East Campus on Ayers Street. The March 5 performance is Student Appreciation Night with free admission for all area students with a valid ID and includes a post-show reception.
Tickets are $10 general admission; $7 for seniors, military and DMC faculty/staff and $3 for DMC students with a valid ID. Box office opens one hour prior to each performance. Advance tickets are available online at www.delmar.edu/drama. For more information about the production, contact Del Mar Drama at 698-1216 or drama@delmar.edu.
The Diviners is rated PG-13 due to slightly suggestive content and is for mature audiences only. No children under age 6 allowed.
Set in the fictional town of Zion during the Great Depression, The Diviners is a luminous story of religion and magic, faith and doubt, love and grief. The story focuses on a traumatized teenager, Buddy Layman, and his friendship with a disenchanted preacher, C. C. Showers.
When Buddy was young, he almost drowned and lost his mother during the same accident that left him deathly afraid of water. His experience gave him the gift of “divining” and the ability to find water wells and predict the rain.
Determined to break away from a long line of Kentucky family preachers, Showers is resolute not to do what he does best and heads out to find a new identity and a decent job. His personal journey lands him in Zion where he finds work as a mechanic for Buddy’s father, Ferris Layman, setting the stage for the ex-preacher and the teenager to form their unusual friendship.
Since Zion doesn’t have a man of the cloth, residents—including the religious townswomen—embark upon persuading Showers to share the good and Godly word. But, the former preacher has already determined his own mission—introducing Buddy to water and soap after developing a bad case of ringworm.
After Showers finally gets the boy into the river and bathes him, the townspeople mistake the act for a baptism, building their hopes and blurring the lines between the two. Is it a bath or a baptism?
Townsfolk then seek their own cleansing by the preacher, entering the water and causing confusion. Tragedy strikes and ironically leads to the one thing Buddy fears most … drowning.
Don’t miss Del Mar Drama’s spring presentation of The Diviners and the emotional experience that juxtaposes drama with comedy and joy with tragedy.
For more information about the College’s Drama program, visit www.delmar.edu/drama.
Del Mar College empowers students to achieve their dreams. We offer quality programs, individual attention, outstanding instruction through faculty with real-world experience and affordable costs to credit and noncredit students in Corpus Christi and the South Texas Coastal Bend area. Nationally recognized while locally focused, we’re ranked in the top two percent of community colleges in the country granting associate degrees to Hispanic students (Community College Week). Del Mar College focuses on offering our students programs that match current or emerging career opportunities. Whether students are interested in the fine arts, sciences, business, occupational or technical areas, students get the education they need for the future they want at Del Mar College.