The Nicholls Players will return to the stage this spring with a presentation of “The Diviners,” the first play to be held since the cancelation of the fall performance of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”The play, which will run about two hours, not including the intermission, opens March 18 in Talbot Theatre. This will be the first time that “The Diviners” has been performed at the University.

Stanley Coleman, assistant professor of mass communication, said that he had some close friends that recommended the play to him after their own experiences with directing it.

“This is a play that I read and enjoyed, but I had never seen a production of it,” Coleman said. “I’ve always wanted to do it.”

The cast will also include some of the Nicholls Players who worked on the presentation of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which was canceled last semester.

Coleman said, that in the midst of learning that some of the Players would not be returning, he thought that the play had lost some of its momentum and decided that it would be best to postpone. Because the auditorium books events frequently, it was unable to reschedule.

“To have these students put in at least six weeks of work and not do the show was devastating,” Coleman said.

Coleman said that he enjoys “A Streetcar Named Desire,” but he also said that it was time for something new.

“The Diviners,” by Jim Leonard Jr., takes place in a rural Midwest farm community during the Great Depression. It is the story of a weary preacher who drifts into town and meets a misunderstood young boy who has the gift of water divining, a practice that uses a “y” shaped rod to locate water sources. Over the course of the play the townspeople demand that the preacher return to a way of life that he has lost faith in.

“On the surface it is a story about a boy who is afraid of the water, but has the power to divine it. At the core, it is about the effort to overcome that fear,” Coleman said.

The play will feature a middle school student as the young boy. While it is not unusual to use a non-University student in a performance, it is unusual to cast him in such a big role, Coleman said.

Coleman said that he was glad that some of the people that had worked on “A Streetcar Named Desire,” were able to be in “The Diviners,” because they had worked so hard and they deserved the recognition.

The play will run through March 21 and the Nicholls Players expect between 250 to 300 people to be in attendance.