Herman Melville News

FirstWorks, a Providence-based nonprofit dedicated to connecting art with audiences, and Brown Arts Institute at Brown University, a new university-wide research enterprise and catalyst for the arts at Brown, announced their partnership to co-present an artist residency featuring visionary director, choreographer, and dancer Bill T. Jones.

The Shed will present MOBY DICK; or, The Whale, a new feature-length silent film by award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Wu Tsang. With original music composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee with Asma Maroof and conducted by Daniela Candillari, its presentation at The Shed will be performed live by Members of the New York Philharmonic.

In What Problem?, Jones, a two-time Tony Award winner (FELA! and Spring Awakening), choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer, invites the public into his creative process for a provocative and thoughtful meditation on the tension between belonging to a community and feelings of isolation in divisive times.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company will host its indoor/outdoor Jack Jones Children's Literacy Gala on Saturday, April 23 at 6:00 pm.

In the world of audiobook publishing, there is no higher honor than the annual Audie Awards. This year, tiny but esteemed audiobook producer, Alison Larkin Presents of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is competing with the goliath publishers of the audiobook business for the 2022 Audie Award in the Literary Fiction & Classics category.

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) have announced finalists for the 2022 Audie Awards. Finalists include Cynthia Erivo for Best Female Narrator and Lin-Manuel Miranda for Best Male Narrator. Leslie Odom Jr., Annie Golden, Telly Leung, and Jason Tam are also featured on audiobooks that made the list. Check out the full list of nominations now!

A Theater in the Dark's live virtual audio drama A WAR OF THE WORLDS to return for three Halloween weekend performances, October 29-31

Broadcast live from the deck of Wavertree, this month's sing-along will include whaling songs and show-related artifacts from the Museum collection in honor of American novelist Herman Melville's birthday.

South Street Seaport Museum has announced its August schedule, including free tours of the historic tall ship Wavertree and the 1908 lightship Ambrose, free demonstrations by Bowne & Co. letterpress printers, an outdoor exhibition on Pier 16, cruises aboard the 1930 tugboat W.O. Decker, and more.

South Street Seaport Museum's monthly sea-music event Sea Chanteys and Maritime Music – the original NYC chantey sing, now made popular on TikTok – continues virtually on Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 2pm ET.

Following this spring's sold-out run of Afterwardsness, renowned director, choreographer, and dancer Bill T. Jones returns to Park Avenue Armory will present and perform in the world premiere of his monumental new work, Deep Blue Sea.

On Site Opera, New York's pioneering opera company rooted in site-specific storytelling and the immersive experience, in partnership with the South Street Seaport Museum, brings opera aboard the deck of the historic tall ship Wavertree with What Lies Beneath, August 28-September 2, 2021.

Queer|Art, New York City's home for the creative and professional development of LGBTQ+ artists, has announced the upcoming summer season of Queer|Art|Film, returning for another digital season now through August 16th.

Center for Performance Research is thrilled to present mayfield brooks: Whale Fall II, a week-long series of encounters featuring in-person, virtual, and streaming events, June 12–20, 2021. This program marks the first time CPR will welcome the public back to its space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since March 2020. 

John Lithgow is featured in a special, new audio recording released by 92Y: a reading of William Maxwell’s novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow. The novel is Lithgow’s personal favorite, and in the recording, commissioned by 92Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center, the Emmy Award-winner reads it in its entirety.

University of the Arts' Ira Brind School of Theater Arts has announced the lineup for the seventh annual Polyphone Festival of New and Emerging Musicals. The festival will be available online beginning April 21.

MOBY DICK IN THE DARK is performed entirely without visuals, combining recorded sound, live Foley effects, an original musical score, and the human voices of actors, to tell the story.

History At PlayTM, LLC (HAP, LLC) has garnered international applause for their Immersive Living History Experiences, chronicling the lives of influential and often forgotten figures. On Friday April 9th, 2021, HAP, LLC celebrates National Poetry Month by transporting viewers into the mind of Walt Whitman.

We sat down with the director and adapter of MOBY DICK IN THE DARK, Corey Bradberry, and one of his actors from the show, Mack Gordon (Starbuck/Stubb). MOBY DICK IN THE DARK is the fourth live online audio drama from Chicago’s Theatre in the Dark, where Bradberry and Gordon are co-founders. They talk MOBY DICK, the resurgence of audio theatre, and the importance of doing it live.

Theatre in the Dark, the innovative Chicago theater company focusing exclusively on audio plays, will follow up its successful 2020 productions of THREE STORIES UP, H.G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN THE DARK, with an original adaptation of Herman Melville's classic adventure story MOBY DICK from March 11 through April 10.