Adaptations of Moby-Dick - Stage

Stage

• Moby Dick—Rehearsed, a "play within a play" directed by Orson Welles. Welles starred in the original London production, while Rod Steiger starred in the original Broadway production.
• Writer Julian Rad and Director Hilary Adams created a bare stage adaptation of Moby Dick that premiered in New York City in 2003. The Off-Off Broadway "play with music" was nominated for three 2004 Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Play (Julian Rad, writer/Works Productions, producer), Outstanding Director of a Play (Hilary Adams) and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Michael Berry as Starbuck). Moby Dick was the first Off-Off Broadway production to ever be nominated in the Play and Director categories in the 50 year history of the Drama Desk Award.
• Moby Dick! The Musical, a 1990s West End musical about a girls' boarding school production of the classic tale
• In the late 1990s, performance artist Laurie Anderson produced the multimedia stage presentation Songs and Stories From Moby Dick. Several songs from this project were included on her 2001 in music CD, Life on a String.
• In 2000, Jim Burke's adaptation of Moby Dick toured the UK aboard Walk-the-Plank's theatre ship, the Fitzcarraldo, in a co-production with Liverpool company Kaboodle. It won Best New Play and Best Fringe Production in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.
• In 2008, a production of Moby Dick was commissioned by and performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada. The adaptation was written and directed by Morris Panych and was unique, among other things, for being performed on a revolving stage, for stage movement that was more like ballet, and for having no dialogue actually spoken by the cast (all narration/speech was pre-recorded and played over the action) until the very end when Ishmael is rescued by the Rachel; holding Queequeg's little idol close to him, he speaks aloud "Call me Ishmael." The production was performed at the Studio Theater from July 22 to October 18, 2008 and starred David Ferry as "Captain Ahab", Shaun Smyth as "Ishmael", Eddie Glen as "Flask", Marcus Nance as "Queequeg" and Kelly Grainger, Alison Jantzie, and Lynda Sing as "The Sirens/Whale".
• Composer Jake Heggie composed Moby-Dick for the Dallas Opera's inaugural season in the Winspear Opera House. It premiered on April 30, 2010 with Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab. The opera has since been mounted by the State Opera of South Australia (August 2011), Calgary Opera (January 2012), San Diego Opera (February 2012), and San Francisco Opera (October 2012).