Members of Mixed Magic Theatre, including Tom Hurdle as Captain Ahab, center-top, and Yosa Yon as Alba, center-bottom, rehearse a scene from the Moby Dick project.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

Mixed Magic Theater is taking its Moby Dick: Then and Now to the Kennedy Center. At a morning press conference today at the theater’s Pawtucket headquarters, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy will announce that the troupe will be giving one performance of the show in the nation’s capital Nov. 15.

The performance will be held on the Millennium Stage, said Mixed Magic founder Ricardo Pitts-Wiley. He said his company would be limited to one hour of stage time, which means the show will have to be trimmed by about 40 minutes.

“Our hope is after they see it,” said Pitts-Wiley, “they will ask us back to do the entire thing.”

A cast of 15 and four support staff will be traveling to Washington. The company will use a stripped down set.

Moby Dick: Then and Now, which was created by Pitts-Wiley, offers two versions of the popular Herman Melville novel. One has an adult cast acting out the familiar story of Captain Ahab and his obsession with the white whale, the other features a youth cast who hunts down the white menace of cocaine.

Mixed Magic took Moby Dick to Poland in August 2007 for a conference on Melville and writer Joseph Conrad, and it was produced at the Providence Performing Arts Center a year ago.

“Once we did it,” said Pitts-Wiley, “we knew we had something.”

Pitts-Wiley said that Rep. Kennedy was instrumental in lining up the date at the Kennedy Center. He said he got a call from the performing arts complex at the beginning of the year, looking to arrange a date for the show.

Pitts-Wiley said he realized his company would have to develop shows like Moby Dick with a regional and national draw if it is to survive. He is also working on productions about Frankenstein, abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass and, in the more distant future, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The idea is to teach the classics in ways that are accessible to youngsters.