Kansas City musical theater company takes a novel approach to a classic book
For a book that was a flop when it was published 175 years ago, “Moby-Dick” has done all right for itself.
The novel by Herman Melville about a great white whale and the sea captain consumed by the beast that had bitten off his leg sold only a few hundred copies upon its release in England and America in 1851. It has since had sales in the millions and is now considered one of America’s great novels.
“Moby-Dick” also has spawned countless scholarly works, critical analyses and adaptations — including comics, children’s books, movies, plays, at least one opera and several musicals (all with original music).
But there has never been anything quite like the adaptation by Kansas City’s Music Theater Heritage, which will present the world premiere of “Moby Dick: a Sea Shanty” March 26 through April 19 at its Crown Center theater.
MTH artistic director Tim Scott, who wrote the show and will direct it, said he is most excited about its music.
“It’s a soundscape that I don’t think you see very often in musical theater,” he said. “If at all.”
Scott was looking for a popular work to adapt into a musical after doing so successfully with “Glass Menagerie” in 2024. He landed on “Moby-Dick,” which is free to adapt because the copyright has expired and it’s in the public domain. Then he overheard his daughters listening to sea shanties and was mesmerized.
When he discovered that many of shanties, traditional folk songs that sailors historically created and sang, are from the 18th century and therefore also in the public domain, he “really started getting excited.”
“The authenticity of these sea shanties that are songs of the era and of sailors, of the people, I just thought it was such a natural, authentic fit,” Scott said. “So that’s why we decided to go that route with it.”
He chose 12 shanties and formulated a plot revolving around Ishmael, the novel’s narrator and the only survivor of the Pequod’s run-in with the great white whale. Ishmael survived by clinging to a coffin.
“There’s been no plays about Ishmael’s epilogue,” Scott said.
“Moby Dick: a Sea Shanty” opens with Ishmael in a Nantucket pub, and he proceeds to relate his experiences on the Pequod.
You won’t see a big whale on the stage; he is left to the imagination. Similarly, the play will take a stylized approach to storms and whale chases.
“I believe in theatrical storytelling,” Scott said. “We don’t do much literal. … We’re not trying to reproduce a literal film adaptation story. We’re trying to tell this story with the conventions of stagecraft.”
The musical also will address themes that aren’t in Melville’s book, with Scott saying he sought to tell a story that is about more than “toxic masculinity.”
“Obviously, when everybody thinks of ‘Moby-Dick,’ they think obsessive, they think monomaniacal,” he said. “But I really wanted it to be more than that. I didn’t want it to be a male-driven story. I wanted it to be a human-driven story.
“That’s why our cast is a mix of male- and female-identifying actors, even though in the book the ship is all men.”
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Among the women is Betse Ellis, a local fiddle player. She and three bandmates headed by music director Fritz Hutchison will be incorporated into the cast, assuming roles as crew members as they play banjo, mandolin, accordion, guitar, bass and fiddle.
“They’re just an active, immersive part of the storytelling,” Scott said.
And what a story it is.
“Moby Dick: a Sea Shanty”
When: 7:30 p.m. March 26-28, 2 p.m. March 29, 7:30 p.m. April 2-4, 2 p.m. April 5, 7:30 p.m. April 9-10, 2 and 7 p.m. April 11, 2 p.m. April 12, 7:30 p.m. April 16-17, 2 and 7 p.m. April 18, 2 p.m. April 19.
Where: MTH Main Stage, third floor, Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd.
What: Music Theater Heritage’s world-premiere adaptation of the classic novel “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, written and directed by MTH artistic director Tim Scott.
Information: Tickets $49-$67; musictheaterheritage.com
This story was originally published March 24, 2026 at 4:51 PM.
