Video: THE SHARK IS BROKEN Gets Ready to Take a Bite Out of Broadway

Rehearsals are underway for The Shark is Broken, which officially begins Broadway previews on July 25, at the John Golden Theatre. The play officially opens on Thursday, August 10, 2023, for a strictly limited 16-week engagement. 

FADE IN: The open ocean, 1974. Filming on JAWS is delayed…again. The film's lead actors—theatre veteran Robert Shaw and young Hollywood hotshots, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider—are crammed into a too-small boat, entirely at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Alcohol flows, egos collide, and tempers flare on a chaotic voyage that just might lead to cinematic magic…if it doesn't sink them all.

Co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, this new Olivier Award-nominated comedy imagines what happened on board “The Orca” when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster, JAWS. 

"[Broadway] felt like a million miles away when I first conceived the idea with Joseph Nixon," Shaw told BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge. "We never thought it would get here. We thought it would be popular... but this is a dream come true."

Shaw will make his Broadway debut portraying his father Robert Shaw, who played “Quint” in JAWS. He'll be joined by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice, School of Rock) as Richard Dreyfuss, and Colin Donnell (Anything Goes, “Chicago Med”) as Roy Scheider.

"I thought that [writing this show] was a bad idea, but I was persuaded by my dear friends to write the script," Shaw continued. "And in the process, we realized that I was onto something that wasn't just about me and my dad, but was about something we thought was funny and also had the potential to have an emotional impact."