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An interview with the writer and performer of The Maturation of an Inconvenient Negro (or iNEGRO).

How do you create a whale in the theater? That’s the question that Tony-winning lighting designer Bradley King needed to answer in “Moby-Dick.”

Developed by the same creative team as “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,” which went from the ART to Broadway, “Moby-Dick” aims to put America and its struggles on the Pequod with Ishmael, Queequeg and mad Captain Ahab.

The novel has been made into comic books and a cantata; Bob Dylan cited it upon winning the 2017 Nobel Prize. Now it’s about to be a musical.

“When Dave says, ‘I’ve got an idea,’ I know he’s going somewhere good. We trust each other. So when we were at a post-“Comet” meeting and Dave brought up “Moby-Dick,” I was with him from the jump,” says Chavkin.

The show may be debuting just an hour from New Bedford, the seaside town where part of the novel takes place, but this adaptation by Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin is a whole new beast.