Jim Leonard: from The Diviners to three network series

Born Fort Wayne — playwright, then creator and executive producer

The playwright who learned to produce: Jim Leonard — Jim Leonard Jr. in his theatre credits — was born in Fort Wayne: the credit databases give the city as his birthplace and the Indianapolis press calls him a Fort Wayne native, while his own published biographies say more loosely that he was born and raised in small towns in Indiana. He was educated at Hanover College, where his best-known play, The Diviners, was first developed and performed — the Depression-era drama of a disillusioned preacher and a damaged boy in a fictional Indiana hamlet that became a staple of American college and community theatre, and that has been staged in Fort Wayne itself, at the university's theatre. Leonard spent twenty years as a member, and for a time playwright-in-residence, of New York's Circle Repertory Company; his published plays include And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson and Anatomy of Gray, and his theatre honors run to three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Dramatists Guild Award.

He learned screenwriting, by his own account, from Robert Altman, who advised him to stop worrying about format and "just write a letter to the director." The television career that followed was a writer-producer's in full: he wrote and produced The Marshal (ABC), Internal Affairs (NBC), Night Visions (Fox), Kilroy (HBO), and the American version of Cracker (ABC), and co-wrote the screenplay of Mira Nair's film My Own Country. Then he created three network series of his own: Thieves (ABC, 2001), Skin (Fox, 2003), and Close to Home (CBS, 2005–2007) — the last set in suburban Indianapolis and built on the career of Hamilton County prosecutor Patricia Trathen, whom Leonard sought out through Indiana attorneys. On Close to Home he shared the executive producer credit with Jerry Bruckheimer; the series ran 44 episodes, and one of its production companies was named, with a wink at home, Hoosier Karma. In the years since he has worked as a consulting producer on Dexter (Showtime) and as a writer and producer on The Closer and Ray Donovan.

Sources:

1. Vic Ryckaert, "Indy joins TV crime drama locales," Indianapolis Star, 18 July 2005 — Leonard "a Fort Wayne native and graduate of Hanover College," sharing the executive producer credit on Close to Home with Jerry Bruckheimer; the series drawn from prosecutor Patricia Trathen's work.
2. NUVO (Indianapolis), fall 2005 television preview — Leonard interviewed in Beverly Hills as "the Fort Wayne native"; the setting chosen for its "normalcy."
3. Circle X Theatre Co. and Circle Repertory biographies of Jim Leonard — the plays and honors; twenty years at Circle Rep; created Close to Home (CBS), Skin (Fox), and Thieves (ABC); wrote and produced The Marshal, Internal Affairs, Night Visions, Kilroy, and Cracker; co-wrote My Own Country; consulting producer, Dexter; later work on Ray Donovan.
4. Close to Home series record — created by Jim Leonard; CBS, 4 October 2005 – 11 May 2007; 44 episodes; executive producers including Leonard and Jerry Bruckheimer; production companies Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Hoosier Karma, and Warner Bros. Television.
5. IMDb credit record, Jim Leonard (II) — born 7 March in Fort Wayne, Indiana (the year is not stated in the record reached); seventeen producer credits, among them Ray Donovan, Dexter, and Close to Home as executive producer; the Altman apprenticeship in the biographical note.
6. IPFW (Purdue University Fort Wayne) Department of Theatre, OnStage program for The Diviners — the play first developed by the Hanover College Theatre Group; Leonard's biography as above.