The whaling history of the United States can be roughly divided into two parts: native whaling and commercial whaling (though overlaps exist). Native whaling is a tradition which reaches back to the early Inuit of North America hundreds of years before the colonization by Europeans. Commercial whaling in the United States was the center of the world whaling industry during the 18th and 19th centuries and was most responsible for the severe depletion of a number of whale species. New Bedford, Massachusetts and Nantucket Island were the primary whaling centers in the 1800s. In 1857, New Bedford had 329 registered whaling ships. Prior to the 1920s when commercial whaling in the United States waned, as petroleum products began replacing oil derived from whales, numerous fishing ports were actually whaling ports which built whaling ships. From the enormous US whaling fleet of the 1800s in the US, only one wooden ship remains, the Charles W. Morgan, berthed at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.
The primary focus of whaling in the United States was the lamp oil made from the prodigious amount of fat contained in whales. The whaling ships carried rendering equipment which rendered fat from the carcasses as soon as it was raised onto the ships. Aside from the fat and certain bones, the majority of carcass was generally thrown back in the water, as there was no market for whale meat. Whale oil was, at that time, the highest quality oil for lamps.
The discovery of petroleum in Titusville, Pennsylvania, on August 27, 1859 by Edwin L. Drake was the beginning of the end of commercial whaling in the United States as kerosene, distilled from crude oil, replaced whale oil in lamps. Later, electricity gradually replaced oil lamps, and by the 1920s, the demand for whale oil had disappeared entirely.
Today, the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park commemorates the heritage of both commercial and native whaling in the United States at its locations in New Bedford and Barrow, Alaska.
(excerpt from Wikipedia.com)
Books
The Acting Company’s Reading List!
Take a look at what we are reading here at The Acting Company.
Heroes
EDUCATION REHEARSED!
Each week for the duration of our time working with Moby Dick Rehearsed, The Acting Company’s Education Department is going to ask you for your opinion on a topic related to our show. Keep checking back each week to see what’s on our minds and if you would like to share your answers with us, please post them as a comment on our page. We hope to hear what you think!
THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
This week I would like to take a look at Ishmael as the narrator of Moby-Dick. Take a moment and think about Ishmael’s style of narration. What methods does he employ to tell this story? Does he use classical and Biblical allusions? What type of a person do you view Ishmael as? Is he artistic, is he educated, is he brutish? These are all things to think about. Also, is he reliable or unreliable as a narrator? In the first sentence of the novel he says, “Call me Ishmael.” Why does he say this? Why does he not just say, “My name is Ishmael”? Could this be because his name is NOT Ishmael, but that is what he wants to be called? Can we believe anything else he says considering we cannot be sure if his name is even Ishmael? Why is he the one to tell this story? How would the story change if Ahab had been the narrator? What qualities would Ahab bring to the story that Ishmael does not? Take a look at the links below to find more information on this topic.
Take a look below and see where Moby Dick Rehearsed will be playing during our 2008 national tour. There are more stops to come, so check back and see if we will be coming to your town. Click on the images below each stop to find information about the venues.
Fairfield, CT
January 25, 2008
Fairfield University
Pasadena, CA
February 1, 2008
California Institute of Technology
Medford, OR
February 4, 2008
Craterion Performances
Tacoma, WA
February 6-7, 2008
Broadway Center for the Performing Arts
Livermore, CA
February 16, 2008
Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center
Queen Creek, AZ
February 18, 2008
Queen Creek Performing Arts Center
Santa Fe, NM
February 22, 2008
Lensic Performing Arts Center
Ft. Collins, CO
February 24, 2008
City of Ft. Collins Lincoln Center
Seward, NE
March 2, 2008
Concordia University, Nebraska
Crystal Lake, IL
March 14, 2008
Raue Center for the Arts
Columbus, OH
March 16, 2008
CAPA
Cincinnati, OH
March 17, 2008
Aronoff Center
Parkersburg, WV
March 18, 2008
West Virginia University
Muncie, IN
March 19, 2008
Ball State University
West Palm Beach, FL
March 27-28, 2008
Kravis Center for the Performing Art
Fairfax, VA
April 5, 2008
George Mason University
Duxbury, MA
April 9, 2008
Duxbury Performing Arts Center
Keene, NH
April 13, 2008
Colonial Theater
Orono, ME
April 15, 2008
Maine Center for the Arts
Portland, ME
April 16, 2008
Merril Auditorium at City Hall
Only a fool – or perhaps a genius – would adapt one of the greatest American novels for the stage. Orson Welles was a bit of both. Theater enthusiasts will love what Orson Welles has created out of that most famous tale, Moby Dick. Those who enjoy their literature in delightful dramatic adaptations will find much love in this hybrid of Herman Melville’s story adapted to draw a parallel between King Lear and Captain Ahab. Set in an empty theater, a tyrannical director leads his crew and transports audiences to Captain Ahab’s fateful voyage across the seas in search of the great white whale, Moby Dick.
Orson Welles treated the audience as a partner in creating illusion, which shines vividly in this riveting production. Noted theater critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, “With this Moby Dick, the theater becomes once more a house of magic.”
The Acting Company’s production transforms Orson Welles’ play into deeply affecting theater. Director Casey Biggs creates a mesmerizing theatrical tour-de-force that should be seen by young audiences and avid theater goers alike.
Stage and film actor, and director, born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The son of a wealthy inventor and a concert pianist, he was a precocious child who staged mini-productions of Shakespeare in his house. When his mother died (1925), he went on a world tour with his father, then attended a private school in Illinois where he continued to direct plays (1926–31). Welles turned down college and set off for Ireland on a sketching tour - he had shown talent as an artist - and ended up acting with Dublin's famous Gate Theatre (1931). He returned to the USA in 1932, toured with Katharine Cornell's road company, and made his Broadway debut (as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet) in 1934, the year he also gave his first radio performance. With John Houseman he collaborated on productions for the Federal Theater Project, and they co-founded the Mercury Theatre (1937), noted for such productions as an all African-American Macbeth. In 1938, Welles and Houseman began to produce plays on their Mercury Theatre on the Air, and on 30 October that year, as a Halloween spoof, they broadcast a dramatization of H G Wells's War of the Worlds, so realistic in conveying a Martian invasion that it led to actual panic throughout the USA.
His growing reputation led to his appointment by RKO in Hollywood, but none of his initial projects got into production. Then he made Citizen Kane (1941), which despite its success with critics and a few metropolitan audiences, was not all that successful at the time. From this point on, Welles suffered from his reputation as an erratic film-maker who was unable to hold to budgets or schedules, and he would spend the rest of his life forced to seek financing for his projects. By c.1946 he was effectively in exile in Europe, where he continued acting in films, including The Third Man (1949), to earn enough money to finance his own productions, such as Othello (1952) and Chimes at Midnight (1966).
Back in the USA by the mid-1970s, he found himself honoured as one of the true geniuses of American films, but thereafter he was reduced to appearances in grade-B films, television talk shows, and television commercials. Several times divorced, overweight, with a resumé that included many failed projects, he would have seemed a failure at his death, had his rich life not produced so many original works.
MELVILLE herman
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819.
Herman Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself independently of family assistance led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy in a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, visited London, and returned on the same ship.
A good part of the succeeding three years (1837 to 1840) was occupied with school-teaching. At any rate, he once more signed ship's articles and on January 1, 1841, sailed from Fairhaven, Massachusetts on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific Ocean. The vessel sailed around Cape Horn and traveled to the South Pacific. Melville left very little direct information about the events of this 18 months' cruise, although his whaling romance, Moby-Dick; or, the White Whale, probably gives many pictures of life on board the Acushnet. Melville decided to abandon the vessel on reaching the Marquesas Islands. He lived among the natives of the island for several weeks. After a sojourn to the Society Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. He remained there four months, working as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American frigate United States, which, after stopping on the way at a Peruvian port, reached Boston in October of 1844. He would eventually experience overnight success as a writer and adventurer with the 1846 publication of Typee. For the next four years, he would have other successes, but none would be on the order of his very first one.
Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter of noted Massachusetts jurist Lemuel Shaw) on August 4, 1847. The Melvilles resided in New York City, where he became associated with New York University as an instructor. In 1850 they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (which is today a museum). Here Melville remained for thirteen years, occupied with his writing and managing his farm. There he befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox. He wrote Moby-Dick and Pierre there (dedicating Moby-Dick to Hawthorne); however, these works did not achieve the popular and critical success of his earlier books.
While in Pittsfield, because of financial reasons, Melville was persuaded to enter the lucrative lecture field. From 1857 to 1860, he spoke at lyceums, chiefly on travel in the South Seas. Turning to poetry, he composed a collection of poems that failed to interest a publisher. In 1863, he and his wife resettled, with their four children, in New York City. After the end of the Civil War, he published "Battle-Pieces" (1866), a collection of over seventy poems that was generally panned by critics. His professional writing career was at an end and his marriage was dissolving when in 1867 his oldest son, Malcolm, committed suicide. Pulling his life together, he used his influence to obtain a position of customs inspector for the City of New York (then a lucrative and very coveted appointment), and held the post for 19 years.
After an illness that lasted several months, Melville died at his home in New York City early on the morning of September 28, 1891, age 72. The New York Times listed his name in an obituary as "Henry Melville." He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.
In his later life, his works were no longer popular with a broad audience because of their increasingly philosophical, political and experimental tendencies. His novella Billy Budd, Sailor an unpublished manuscript at the time of his death (it had remained in a tin can for 30 years), was published in 1924 and later turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter Ustinov.
(excerpt from wikipedia.com)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Here is a list of the characters which appear in Moby Dick Rehearsed. Check back in a few months and you’ll be able to see the actors that will be playing these roles!
YOUNG ACTOR and ISHMAEL.....Timothy Sekk
YOUNG ACTRESS and PIP.....Kelley Curran
STAGE MANAGER and TASHTEGO.....Luis Moreno
MIDDLE-AGED ACTOR, FLASK and ELIJAH.....David Foubert
A SERIOUS ACTOR and STARBUCK.....Michael Stewart Allen
A CYNICAL ACTOR, CARPENTER and DAGGOO.....Victoire Charles
AN OLD PRO and PELEG.....Christopher Oden
ACTOR WITH NEWSPAPER and STUBB.....Robb Martinez
GOVERNOR, FATHER MAPPLE and AHAB.....Seth Duerr
ACTOR and QUEEQUEG.....Peter Macklin
ACTOR and MASTHEAD.....Jay Leibowitz
(picture by Kent Rockwell)
WHALING New Bedford
One of the stops on our 2007-2008 National Tour will be New Bedford, MA (sometimes known as The Whaling City). This is because New Bedford was one of the most important ports in America for the whaling industry. While we are there, we are definitely going to see the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The Whaling Museum is home to a huge collection of art, artifacts and manuscripts pertaining to American whaling in the late eighteenth century into the early twentieth century. For more information about the New Bedford Whaling Museum, CLICK HERE.
