Or the White Whale

Orson Welles did it, and Laurie Anderson, too. Now local director Jon Ferguson—best known for his 2005 hit, Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban—has taken up the challenge of adapting Melville’s epic for the stage. This is an undertaking that, he admits, could elude, haunt, and/or—much as with Captain Ahab—swallow him whole. Ferguson’s project got under way with the casting of clowns and dancers from physical theater circles as well as actors from more text-based traditions. With this range of performers, the show aims to capture both the powerful physicality and the amazing prose of the story. Intriguingly, a fully functional set involves ropes, planks, canvas, and pulleys, meaning that as the play production builds, so too will constructed images of the sea, the ship, and even the whale. 612-340-1725; www.southerntheater.org