Ishmael lives with his brother and foster parents in the Black Range on Earth where the Shroud hangs over everything. Storms rage so hard the only way to get from place to place is to rely on the guide ropes set up around the community. Earth is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. Ishmael must get his family off planet before it’s too late. In order to do that, he must enlist at the Mission Office.

Leaving on his mission will be difficult, especially now that he knows his brother has enlisted as well, but working off-world is the only way Ishmael can earn enough money to save them all. With an ominous warning from a family friend ringing in his ears, Ishmael wakes up aboard the Pequod with several other teenagers who’ve been assigned to the mission. After a brief time aboard the boat, however, they all quickly find that their mission is hardly what they were lead to believe, especially not with Captain Ahab in charge. He’s after the Great White Terrafin and he’ll never give up the chase. Ishmael must battle pirates and crew mates alike in order to secure the money he needs for his parents, placing himself and his new friends in riskier and riskier situations the more that first mate, Starbuck, recognizes Ishmael’s immense value as a seafarer. The teens struggle with morality amidst a crew captained by a madman.

Meanwhile, behind all decisions looms the mysterious Gilded and their Trust. They might even have something to do with what’s going on back in the Black Range and, if so, Ishmael is determined to find out what.

Todd Strasser retools the classic Moby Dick story for young adults with a focus on the concept of chosen family and fierce loyalties. Ishmael is an unwavering moral compass and a clear leader. Strasser proves that a sense of family can span great distances, even space travel.

© 2016 Catia Cunha

Catia Cunha has a BA in Theater Arts and English from Mount Holyoke College. She won Young Playwrights Inc.’s 2013 National Playwriting Competition where her short play “Legs” was presented as a staged reading at the Lucille Lortel Theatre at the culmination of the Conference. In the spring of 2013 she produced and acted in her first full-length play, ____space, which was presented at Mount Holyoke. Catia’s senior project, Disinsemination, a play about feminist lesbians and aliens, was presented as a staged reading at Smith College and Mount Holyoke in Fall 2013. Mount Holyoke’s Rooke Theatre produced it in March 2014. In October 2014 Catia participated in the Grex Group’s Insomniacs 24-hour play festival. She is currently working on a play about sea monsters in the subway.