After a rave reception in Edinburgh 2019,
The Shark is Broken opens at the Ambassadors in October 2021

The making of Jaws recreated on stage starring Robert Shaw’s son Ian.

Ian Shaw playing his father Robert Shaw in The Shark is Broken (Photo: Nick Driftwood)
  • FULL CASTING IS ANNOUNCED FOR ‘THE SHARK IS BROKEN’, AS THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SMASH-HIT OF THE 2019 EDINBURGH FRINGE PREPARES TO MAKE WAVES IN THE WEST END.
  • CO-WRITTEN BY ROBERT SHAW’S SON IAN AND JOSEPH NIXON, THIS BRILLIANTLY FUNNY, DEEPLY MOVING PLAY TAKES AUDIENCES BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE BLOCKBUSTER JAWS.
  • LIAM MURRAY SCOTT WILL PLAY RICHARD DREYFUSS AND DEMETRI GORITSAS WILL PLAY ROY SCHEIDER ALONGSIDE IAN SHAW WHO STARS AS HIS FATHER ROBERT SHAW.
  • ‘THE SHARK IS BROKEN’ WILL PLAY A STRICTLY LIMITED RUN AT THE WEST END’S AMBASSADORS THEATRE FROM 9 OCTOBER 2021 – 15 JANUARY 2022.

Sonia Friedman Productions is delighted to announce full casting for The Shark is Broken when it opens at the Ambassadors Theatre from 9 October 2021.   Co-written by Robert Shaw’s son Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, this brilliantly funny play reveals the hilarious and moving behind-the-scenes drama on Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie JAWS.

As previously announced, Ian Shaw (War Horse and Common, National Theatre) will star as his father Robert Shaw. He will be joined by Liam Murray Scott as Richard Dreyfuss (reprising the role he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019), and Demetri Goritsas (ear for eye, Royal Court; Black Mirror, Netflix) as Roy Scheider

Cape Cod, 1974: shooting on ‘Jaws’ has stalled. The film’s lead actors – Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss – are stuck on a boat, at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Awash with alcohol and ambition, three hammered sharks start to bare their teeth…

The Shark is Broken is written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, directed by Guy Masterson, set and costume are by Duncan Henderson, lighting is by Jon Clark, sound and music are by Adam Cork and video is by Nina Dunn. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG.

The Associate Director will be Martha Geelan, the Associate Lighting Designer will be Simisola Majekodunmi and the Costume Associate will be Deborah Andrews.

The production runs in the West End for a strictly limited season from 9 October 2021 – 15 January 2022.  

LISTINGS

Sonia Friedman Productions, Scott Landis
GFour Productions, Tulchin Bartner Productions
Presents:

The Shark is Broken
Written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon

Directed by Guy Masterson
Designed by Duncan Henderson
Lighting by Jon Clark
Sound and Music by Adam Cork
Video by Nina Dunn
Casting by Julia Horan CDG
Associate Director – Martha Geelan
Associate Lighting Designer – Simisola Majekodunmi
Costume Associate – Deborah Andrews

Ambassadors Theatre
West St, London WC2H 9ND

First performance: 9 October 2021
Final performance: 15 January 2022
Performance schedule: Monday – Friday at 7.30pm; Thursday and Saturday at 2.30pm and 7.30pm
Press performances: Tuesday 19 October 7.30pm, Wednesday 20 October 7.30pm, Thursday 21 October 7.30pm. All reviews are under embargo until midnight on Thursday 21 October.

Website: thesharkisbroken.com 
Box Office: 08448717615
Tickets from £10

Twitter: @shark_broken
Instagram: @shark_broken
Facebook: sharkisbrokentheplay

 

 

CAST BIOGRAPHIES:

Demetri Goritsas
Theatre includes: ear for eye, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, Boy Gets Girl (Royal Court), Machinal, Mr Burns (Almeida), All The President’s Men?, His Girl Friday, A Prayer for Owen Meaney, Finding the Sun (National Theatre), Last of the Boys (Southwark Playhouse), Amadeus (Theatre North West) Assassins (Manchester Library Theatre), Street Scene (English National Opera).

Television includes: The Alienist, Ransom, Modus, Black Mirror, A Poet in New York, Nixon’s the One, Episodes, Twenty Twelve, Souvenirs, The Special Relationship, Clouds Over the Hill, Torchwood, Spooks, The Path to 9-11, Numb3rs, Cracker, Gallipoli, Search, Baddiel’s Syndrome, The New Addams Family, Viper, Millennium, The Sentinel, Smudge, Prisoner of Zenda, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Highlander.

Film includes: Rocketman, Radioactive, The Catcher was a Spy, Borg McEnroe, Papillon, Darkest Hour, Snowden, Angel of Decay, Everest, American Killing, Rush, Good Vibrations, Austenland, XMen: First Class, Acts of Godfrey, The Whistleblower, Genova, A Mighty Heart, Road to Guantanamo, Thunderbirds, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, That Deadwood Feeling, Spy Game, The Bourne Identity, Saving Private Ryan, House Arrest, Excess Baggage, Little Women. Radio includes: The Republicans, Life on Egg, The Blank Wall, Death Bredon, Peyton Place.

Liam Murray Scott
​Liam trained at Drama Centre. Credits include Richard III (The Cockpit), Antony & Cleopatra, Four Thieves Vinegar, Paradise Rocks (Brighton Fringe), and It’s A Wonderful Life (Rialto Theatre).

Ian Shaw
Ian Shaw trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, having obtained a BA in American Studies at Sussex University. Theatre includes War Horse and Common (National Theatre); Widowers’ Houses, The Importance of Being Earnest, Nude With Violin, The Philadelphia Story and The Brothers Karamazov  (Manchester Royal Exchange); Three Sisters (Nuffield and Theatre Royal Bath); Private Lives and Closer (Birmingham Rep); The Rivals (Derby Playhouse and Philadelphia Walnut St); The Tempest (SRT) and Much Ado About Nothing in London’s West End.

Television includes Sharpe, Soldier Soldier, Medics, Wuthering Heights, The Queen, Ghost Hour, Silent Witness, Cambridge Spies and the Emmy award-winning Hiroshima.

Film includes Century, Moondance, The Boys and Girl from County Clare, The Contract and Johnny English Reborn.

CREATIVE TEAM BIOGRAPHIES:

Guy Masterson
Guy Masterson is an Oliver Award winning theatre producer and director who has presented over 130 shows over 26 consecutive Edinburgh Festival seasons including many of its biggest hits. His 2009 production of Morecambe transferred to London’s West End and was nominated for two Olivier Awards in 2010, winning for Best Entertainment.  Other directorial credits include: Scaramouche Jones (Wilton’s Music Hall); The Marilyn Conspiracy; Chopping Chillies; Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Absolution, Bill Clinton Hercules, Animal Farm (Georgia); Beauty and the Beast; Austen’s Women, Female Gothic; A Soldier’s Song; Imperial Fizz; I Elizabeth; Long Live The King; Reasonable Doubt; Follow Me; Levelland (UK & OZ); Borge Again!; 12 Angry Men (Australia); Goering’s Defence; ResolutionAll Words For Sex; Adolf; Bye Bye Blackbird;The House Of Correction and Playing Burton.

Credits as a performer include: The Boy’s Own StoryUnder Milk Wood and Animal Farm. He won “The Stage Award Best Actor” for Fern Hill and also received nominations for Shylock, A Soldier’s Song and Under Milk Wood. In 2003 he received the prestigious “Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe Award”, and his company, Theatre Tours International, remains the most awarded and nominated independent theatre company presenting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Duncan Henderson
Productions include Hangman (Two Bins Theatre Company), Bloodlines (Talia Randall), Betrayal, The Polished Scar, Underneath the Lintel (Pretty Villain Prods), Crave(Little Warrior Theatre Prods) and he is currently in the early stages of designing for You Aren’t Doing It Wrong if No One Knows What You Are Doing (Stillpoint Theatre).

Jon Clark
Jon Clark is an award-winning designer. He has designed extensively for the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Donmar Warehouse, Almeida, Young Vic, West End, and with many other companies in the U.K. and internationally. Recent designs for theatre: Betrayal (West End, Broadway); The Inheritance (Olivier Award, Tony Nominated; West End, Broadway); Cyrano de Bergerac (West End), Evita (Regent’s Park); The Jungle (St. Ann’s Warehouse, West End); A German Life (Bridge Theatre); King Charles III (Broadway, West End). Recent opera design: The Exterminating Angel (Metropolitan Opera), Lucia di Lammermoor, Krol Roger, Written on Skin (Royal Opera House, Lincoln Center). 

Adam Cork
Adam Cork has written mainly for the stage, blending original composition with sound design to create integrated music/sound scores for many celebrated productions.

Adam’s musical London Road (co-authored with Alecky Blythe) premiered at the National Theatre in 2011, won the 2011 Critic’s Circle Award ‘Best Musical’, was nominated for the 2012 Olivier Award ‘Best Musical’, and a­­­ film version was released in 2015 (BBC Films/Cuba pictures).  In 2010 he received a Tony Award for the music and sound score for Red (Donmar/Broadway), and an Olivier Award in 2011 for King Lear (Donmar), also receiving the Evening Standard ‘Best Design’ Award 2011 for Anna Christie and King Lear (Donmar) In 2010 he was nominated for the Tony Award ‘Best Score’ (Music & Lyrics) for Enron (Broadway/West End).   

Other theatre includes: The Hunt (Almeida), Ink (Almeida/Duke of York’s); Mosquitoes (National); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Harold Pinter); Travesties (Menier Chocolate Factory/Apollo/American Airlines Theatre);  No Man’s Land (Sheffield Lyceum/Wyndham’s); Richard III (Almeida);  Les Blancs, Danton’s Death (National);Three Days In The Country, Phedre, (National); Hughie (Booth Theatre); Photograph 51, Henry V (Noël Coward); Frost/Nixon (Palace), Hamlet (Donmar/Broadhurst Theatre); Ivanov (Donmar/Wyndham’s); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Headlong/Gielgud); Richard II,  A Streetcar Named Desire The Chalk Garden, Othello, Creditors, The Wild Duck, Caligula (Donmar); Don Carlos (Gieulgud)Romeo & Juliet, The Tempest (RSC); Suddenly Last Summer (West End); Paradise Lost (Headlong). 

Adam sits on the board of Mercury Musical Developments, and is an Associate Artist of the RSC.

Television includes: Scores for The Hollow Crown: Richard II, Macbeth and Frances Tuesday. 

Film includes: Scores for London Road and Genius

Radio includes: Losing Rosalind, The Luneberg Variation (BBC Radio 4), The Colonel-Bird (BBC World Service), Don Carlos, Othello, On the Ceiling, The Chalk Garden (all BBC Radio 3).

Nina Dunn
Nina has designed Video & Projections for a wide range of shows, working internationally and spanning Theatre, Opera, Dance, Musical Theatre, Immersive, Fashion, Opening Ceremonies and Live Events and Public Art. She is also an educator within her industry, helping to devise and deliver undergraduate courses and mentoring programs in leading UK institutions.

Theatre includes: Hamlet, The Mountaintop (Young Vic); Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Shedding a Skin (Soho Theatre); City of Angels (West End); 9 to 5 The Musical (West End / UK Tour);  Cinderella (Imagine Theatre); A Museum in BaghdadVenice Preserved, Miss Littlewood, The Seven Acts of Mercy, Volpone (RSC); Plenty, Copenhagen, Fiddler on the Roof, Forty Years On (Chichester Festival Theatre), Cbeebies Hansel and Gretel (BBC); Going Through (Bush Theatre); Cookies (Theatre Royal Haymarket); No Man’s Land (Tour/West End); Alice’s Adventures Underground (London / China); The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (Theatr Clwyd), The Box of  Delights (Wilton’s Music Hall); Der Freischütz, Macbeth (Wiener Staatsoper); Spring Gala (Royal Opera House);The LifeThe Diary of a Teenage Girl, Usagi Yojimbo (Southwark Playhouse); The Damned United (West Yorkshire Playhouse / Tour); The Hook, Alone In Berlin (Royal & Derngate); Phantom of the Opera (Cameron Mackintosh, UK/US/Australia Tour); The Flying Dutchman (ENO); La Traviata, Hippolyte et Aricie (Glyndebourne); Emperor and Galilean (National Theatre), The Rocky Horror Show (European Tour).

Joseph Nixon
Joseph Nixon is the author (with Brian Mitchell) of the plays Those Magnificent Men (New Perspectives, 2010); Big Daddy vs. Giant Haystacks (The Foundry Group, 2011); Seven Studies in Salesmanship (The Foundry Group, 2013); and the musical The Opinion Makers (Mercury Theatre/Derby Theatre 2013.) He has written material for Joanna Neary, Jo Caulfield, Jerry Sadowitz, and Basil Brush.  

Sonia Friedman Productions
Sonia Friedman is a prolific West End and Broadway theatre producer, responsible for some of the most successful productions in London and New York.

Since 1990, Sonia’s company, SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS (SFP), has developed, initiated and produced over 170 new productions and together the company has won a staggering 58 Olivier Awards, 30 Tonys and 2 BAFTAs.

In 2019, Sonia Friedman OBE was awarded ‘Producer of the Year’ at the Stage Awards for a record breaking fourth time. In 2018, Friedman was also featured in TIME 100, a list of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2017 she took the number one spot in ‘The Stage 100’, becoming the first number one in the history of the compilation not to own or operate West End theatres and the first solo woman for almost 20 years.

Current productions include: the UK premiere of The Book of Mormon, West End and UK & European Tour, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London, New York, Melbourne, San Francisco & Hamburg, Mean Girls US Tour, and the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt at Wyndham’s Theatre, London.

Forthcoming productions include: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Toronto & Tokyo, Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre, To Kill a Mockingbird at the Gielgud Theatre, London, Dreamgirls UK Tour and Oedipus.

Previous theatre productions include: Walden, J’ouvert, Anna X as part of the RE:EMERGE season, The Comeback, Uncle Vanya, Mean Girls (Broadway), Fiddler on the Roof, Rosmersholm, The Ferryman, The Inheritance, Summer and Smoke, Dreamgirls, The JungleAll About Eve, Consent, The Birthday Party, Ink, Hamlet starring Andrew Scott, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?TravestiesThe Glass MenagerieNice FishA Christmas CarolFunny GirlFarinelli and The King, Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, 1984, Sunny AfternoonBend It Like BeckhamThe NetherThe RiverElectraKing Charles IIIShakespeare in LoveGhostsMojoChimericaMerrily We Roll AlongOld TimesTwelfth Night and Richard IIIA Chorus of DisapprovalThe Sunshine BoysHay FeverAbsent FriendsTop GirlsBetrayalMuch Ado About Nothing, Clybourne ParkThe Children’s HourA Flea in Her EarLa BêteAll My SonsPrivate LivesJerusalemA Little Night MusicLegally BlondeOthelloArcadiaThe MountaintopThe Norman ConquestsA View From the BridgeDancing at LughnasaMaria Friedman: Re-ArrangedLa Cage aux FollesNo Man’s LandThe SeagullUnder the Blue SkyThat FaceDealer’s ChoiceHergés Adventures of TintinIn CelebrationBoeing-BoeingThe Dumb WaiterRock ‘n’ RollLove SongFaith HealerBentEh JoeDonkeys’ YearsOtherwise EngagedCelebrationShoot the CrowAs You Like ItThe Home PlaceWhose Life Is It Anyway?, By the Bog of CatsThe Woman in WhiteGuantanamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’EndgameJumpersSee You Next Tuesday, Hitchcock BlondeAbsolutely! {Perhaps}Sexual Perversity in ChicagoRagtime, MacbethWhat the Night Is ForAfterplayUp for GrabsA Day in the Death of Joe EggNoises OffOn an Average DayA Servant to Two MastersPort AuthoritySpoonface Steinberg and Speed-The-Plow.

TV productions include BBC’s Wolf Hall (co-producer), The Dresser (Exec Producer) and King Lear with Anthony Hopkins (Exec Producer), Uncle Vanya, J’Ouvert and Dennis Kelly’s Together, with James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan.

For full details of SFP’s theatre productions, please visit soniafriedman.com.