ON THEATER:

Tom Amen, who’s logging his 10th year as a theater professor and director at Golden West College, is looking forward to taking some time off next spring.

He’s not planning to resign or retire — far from it. Amen will be on hiatus playing a modern-day Captain Ahab in search of the great white whale. Not to harpoon it, but to eventually turn Herman Melville’s epic novel “Moby-Dick” into an original stage production.

Not that this hasn’t been attempted before. Orange Coast College’s David Scaglione did so about a decade ago, and I once witnessed Rod Steiger enact Ahab in an off-Broadway production several eons back.

Amen is charting an ambitious course for his research sabbatical. His itinerary involves extensive travel to the historical whaling ports of the United States and throughout the South Pacific. Ultimately, he’ll settle down on a quiet island and begin the task of turning Melville’s tale of the whale into an original play script.

“For a number of years, I’ve had a strong desire to embrace the daunting challenge of bringing this beast of a novel from the page to the stage,” Amen declared. “But, naturally, the notion of taking on anything so enormous scared the hell out of me.”

Amen eventually turned to one of his favorite writers for some creative courage and inspiration. “I contacted Ray Bradbury, who authored both the screenplay for John Huston’s original film version of ‘Moby-Dick,’ as well as a more recent stage adaptation of the story, entitled ‘Leviathan ‘99,’” he said.

Bradbury’s advice, Amen recounted, was quite simple: “Become Herman Melville.” In other words, “get inside the man, see the story through his eyes and speak with his voice.”

To accomplish this task, the professor intends to explore the foundational life experiences, the personal and creative influences and the historical factors that drove Melville to write “Moby-Dick” in the first place.

“At the same time,” Amen said, “I plan to tear apart the novel, tongue to tail, in order to flesh out — or, shall we say, filet — the essential dramatic thrust, the skeletal structure and through-line of the story.”

This project will involve extensive travel, some of it by sailing ship, from Valparaiso, Chile through the Marquesas Islands to Tahiti, Amen noted. “This is the exact path that Melville followed as a young sailor aboard the American whaler, Acushnet, and the exact voyage that inspired three of his subsequent novels, including ‘Moby-Dick,’” he said.

Amen already has taken quite a journey, through the halls of academe. He credits an acting class from the late H. Wynn Pearce as a freshman at Saddleback College for setting him on a theatrical path. During that time, Amen met set designer Wally Huntoon and actor Michael Bielitz, “two great people I still know and work with today” (Bielitz recently performed in Amen’s Golden West production of “Proof”).

From Saddleback, Amen moved on to UC Irvine, earning a BA in acting, though it was there his focus shifted to directing. That led him to the directing program at the University of Utah, then back to Southern California for several teaching positions before settling in at Golden West.

“I bought a new car during my last two seasons ‘on the road’ and traded it in the day I got the job at GWC,” Amen recalls. “I had put 38,000 miles on it in 18 months.”

Over his decade at Golden West, Amen has mounted a plethora of productions, but three in particular stand out in his estimation: “A Few Good Men,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and his recent staging of “Proof.”

“I am incredibly fortunate to work in a great facility, with some great colleagues and designers,” he declares. “But at the end of the day, I’m a director, and my closest bond will always be with my cast and crew. They’re what I do . . . they’re my tribe . . . my family. And the beauty of it is, the family just keeps growing.”

That family will miss Amen next spring, but the director plans to return with a whale of a tale to share with Golden West audiences.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.