MARION — The Marion Art Center presents “Sailing Towards My Father’’ about Herman Melville, performed by Stephen Collins, at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan.  24 at the Marion Art Center’s Anne Braitmayer Webb Theater, 80 Pleasant St, Marion.

“Sailing Towards My Father,’’ written and directed by Carl A. Rossi, is a one-man play about Herman Melville (1819-1891), the American author best known for his whaling epic “Moby-Dick.’’ The play chronicles Melville’s life from youth to old age, concentrating on his evolution as a writer and his complex relations with God, his parents and siblings, his wife and children, and Nathanial Hawthorne.

Collins first joined the Marion Art Center stage as Walt Whitman, battling Emily Dickinson (Annemarie Fredericks) in the Poetry Knockout! during ArtWeek 2019. He grew up in Cambridge and received a bachelor of arts degree in literature from UMass Boston. 

After more than 20 years in a sales career, he is back doing what he truly loves, performing and teaching. Recently he has been teaching seminars on Whitman, Hardy, Shakespeare, Frost, and contemporary poetry at various locations. 

Collins first performed “Sailing Towards my Father’’ at Arrowhead in Pittsfield, where Melville wrote “Moby-Dick.’’ Prior to the Melville performance, Collins performed as JamesMcNeil Whistler in another play by Rossi titled “Butterfly.’’

He also works as a professionally licensed tour guide doing narrated historical tours of Boston. His Whitman performances have taken him all over the country. He now has eight one-man shows and seven courses, with a teaching style that has been described as a hybrid between lecture and performance.

Tickets are $15 for members, $18 for non-members, and $10 for students under 18. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit marionartcenter.org/events.