Playwright Michael Gorman’s epic new blues/rock opera The Moby Dick Blues begs the question “What was Ahab, but an addict really, and what was Moby Dick but an allusion to opium, and heroin, its contemporary scourge?”

In a tale that stretches across generations and ancients—lost mariners, lost souls, lost lives—this iconoclastic working-class opera about a New England fishing community’s daunting quest for survival and transformation in the face of the opiate crisis calls for a reevaluation of Ahab’s vengeful obsession with the White Whale, and our own destructive relationship with nature, the environment, and ourselves.

Told through lyrics and live music that span the spectrum from blues, spoken word, rap, and rock, this enthralling theatrical experience and environmental installation takes us down to “the crossroads” where the past and future collide in a dramatic struggle for the soul of a community.