Moby-Dick (2019 musical)


Moby-Dick is a stage musical in four parts with lyrics, music and book by Dave Malloy. It is an adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, and made its world premiere in December 2019 at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, directed by Rachel Chavkin.

Production history

Part III: "The Ballad of Pip" was performed as a standalone jazz song-cycle at Joe's Pub on March 20, 2014.
On July 26, 2019, and July 27, 2019, a 90-minute concert of excerpts from Moby-Dick was performed at the American Museum of Natural History, in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life underneath the whale.
The musical had its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 11, 2019 after one week of previews.

Musical numbers

;Prologue
;Part I "The Doubloon"
;Part II "The Honour and Glory of Whaling"
;Part III "The Ballad of Pip; or, The Castaway"
;Part IV "The American Hearse"
;Epilogue

Cast

Reception

The Cambridge production was generally well reviewed, with praise for the music and the work of scenic designer Mimi Lien in particular, while common criticisms included the 3 1/2 hour length and the Pip section. Don Aucoin of the Boston Globe wrote that it was "ambitiously conceived and superbly executed... if occasionally self-indulgent," while Carolyn Clay of WBUR's ARTery called it "an extraordinary sum of diverse parts." On the other hand, Christopher Caggiano of The Arts Fuse criticized the production for trying to adapt the entire book, and for "forcing" contemporary parallels.