Ms. Van Brune (Sarah Bentz) ties up Inspector Black (Nick Springer) at the Come On Inn of Nova Scotia in the play “No Body to Murder.”

JOHN DAY – The Grant Union Junior-Senior High School stage was brimming with talent as the drama club presented its first production of the school year.

The evening of entertainment began with the melodrama “Her Heart Belongs to Heartburn” by Karen Fendrich, with a cast of six seventh-graders.

Students had a chance to let some zaniness shine in mystery-comedy “No Body to Murder” by Edith Weiss, including Josh Taynton as a lazy butler, Janelle King as a fitness instructor/detective and Sam Bentz as a “bad mime,” along with 17 others in the play.

Director Julie Reynolds said the club started this fall with 20 students and grew to 26. Nine in the group are seventh-graders.

“I thought they did well with it,” she said. “I selected a play that gave everyone a chance to have 15 or more lines, and it’s a good beginning play.”