Jaws inspired play 'The Shark Is Broken' set to make waves with North Amercian debut
Direct from London’s West End
THE SHARK IS BROKEN
By Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon
North American Premiere of the Smash-hit Olivier Award-Nominated Best Comedy Play
Strictly Limited Run September 25 to November 6, 2022
The Royal Alexandra Theatre
Tickets On Sale Friday August 12 • mirvish.com
David Mirvish is excited to bring The Shark is Broken - one of the most successful plays of the 2021-22 London season - to launch the new Mirvish Theatre season in Toronto. The comedy, which received both critical and audience acclaim when it ran at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End, will have its North American premiere at the historic Royal Alexandra Theatre, September 25 to November 6, 2022. (The media night is Friday, September 30 at 8:00 PM.) Tickets go on sale Friday August 12 through www.mirvish.com
The Shark is Broken is produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Scott Landis.
ABOUT THE PLAY
Martha’s Vineyard, 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… Nominated for Best Comedy at the 2022 Olivier Awards, this brilliantly funny and deeply moving play takes audiences behind-the-scenes of one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.
The Shark is Broken is co-written by original Jaws star Robert Shaw’s son Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon. The play’s original London cast will reprise their roles in Toronto with Ian Shaw playing his father, Robert Shaw, alongside Demetri Goritsas as Roy Scheider, and Liam Murray Scott as Richard Dreyfuss.
THE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM
The Shark is Broken is directed by Guy Masterson, who has produced, directed and performed across the UK, West End and internationally. His productions are an annual delight at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where The Shark is Broken premiered in 2019 before being picked up for a London transfer. The production is designed by Duncan Henderson, with lighting by Jon Clark, sound design and original music by Adam Cook and video design by Nina Dunn. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG.
Hair, Wigs and Makeup are by Carole Hancock, the Associate Director is Martha Geelan and the Costume Associate is Deborah Andrews.
Ian Shaw stars as Robert Shaw. Theatre credits include: War Horse, Common (National Theatre); Widowers’ Houses, The Importance of Being Earnest, Nude With Violin, The Philadelphia Story, The Brothers Karamazov (Manchester Royal Exchange); Three Sisters (Nuffield/ Theatre Royal Bath); Private Lives, Closer (Birmingham Rep); The Rivals (Derby Playhouse/ Philadelphia Walnut St); The Tempest (SRT); Much Ado About Nothing (West End). Television includes: Sharpe, Soldier Soldier, Medics, Wuthering Heights, The Queen, Ghost Hour, Silent Witness, Cambridge Spies, Hiroshima. Film includes: True Haunting, Century, Moondance, The Boys and Girl from County Clare, The Contract, Johnny English Reborn.
Ian Shaw (centre) with actors Liam Murray-Scott (left as Hooper) and Duncan Henderson (right, as Brody) in Brighton 2019. Duncan is not acting in this latest run of The Shark Is Broken but built the fantastic Orca set!
Demetri Goritsas stars as Roy Scheider. Training: Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre credits include: The Shark is Broken (The Ambassadors Theatre, West End); 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); The Don Juan Variations (Ballet BC/Touchstone Theatre); Amadeus (Theatre North West); Assassins (Manchester Library Theatre); Street Scene (English National Opera). Television includes: Ten Percent, The Fear Index, 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: Ear For Eye, 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 and 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 stars as Richard Dreyfuss. Theatre credits include: Robin Hood (The Hawth); Richard III (The Cockpit); High Society, (West Green House Opera); Between Two Waves, Antony & Cleopatra, It’s A Wonderful Life (Unmasked Theatre); Four Thieves Vinegar, Paradise Rocks (Brighton Fringe).
SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS
SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS (SFP) is an international production company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in London and New York.
SONIA FRIEDMAN PRODUCTIONS has developed, initiated and been lead producer of over 180 new productions and together the company has been responsible for winning 58 Olivier Awards, 34 Tonys and 3 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 Book of Mormon, London and UK & Europe tour, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, London, New York, Melbourne, San Francisco, Hamburg, Toronto and Tokyo, Mean Girls US tour; To Kill a Mockingbird, London; Jerusalem, London; Patriots, London; Funny Girl, New York and Dreamgirls UK tour.
Forthcoming productions include: Eureka Day, London; Merrily We Roll Along, New York; The Doctor, London and UK Tour; The Piano Lesson, New York; Leopoldstadt, New York and The Shark is Broken, Toronto.
Previous theatre productions include: Oklahoma!, The Human Voice, The Shark is Broken, Leopoldstadt, Anna X, Walden and J’Ouvert as part of the Re:Emerge season, The Comeback, Uncle Vanya, Mean Girls, Fiddler on the Roof, Rosmersholm, The Ferryman, The Inheritance, Summer and Smoke, Dreamgirls, The Jungle, All About Eve, Consent, The Birthday Party, Ink, Hamlet starring Andrew Scott, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Travesties, The Glass Menagerie, Nice Fish, A Christmas Carol, The Haunting of Hill House, Funny Girl, Farinelli and the King, Orestia, Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, 1984, Sunny Afternoon, Bend It Like Beckham, The Nether, The River, Electra, King Charles III, Shakespeare in Love, Ghosts, Mojo, Chimerica, Merrily We Roll Along, Old Times, Twelfth Night and Richard III, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Sunshine Boys, Hay Fever, Absent Friends, Top Girls, Betrayal, Much Ado About Nothing, Clybourne Park, The Children’s Hour, A Flea In Her Ear, La Bête, All My Sons, Private Lives, Jerusalem, A Little Night Music, Legally Blonde, Othello, Arcadia, The Mountaintop, The Norman Conquests, A View From the Bridge, Dancing at Lughnasa, Maria Friedman Re-Arranged, La Cage aux Folles, No Man’s Land, The Seagull, Under the Blue Sky, That Face, Dealer’s Choice, Hergé’s Adventures on Tintin, In Celebration, Boeing-Boeing, The Dumb Waiter, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Love Song, Faith Healer, Bent, Eh Joe, Donkeys’ Years, Otherwise Engaged, In Celebration, Shoot the Crow, As You Like It, The Home Place, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, By the Bog of Cats, The Woman in White, Guantanamo: ‘Honour Bound to Defend Freedom’, Endgame, Jumpers, See You Next Tuesday, Hitchcock Blonde, Absolutely! {Perhaps}, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Ragtime, Macbeth, What the Night is For, Afterplay, Up for Grabs, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Noises Off, On an Average Day, A Servant to Two Masters, Port Authority, Spoonface Steinberg and Speed-The-Plow.
TV productions include: Wolf Hall, Uncle Vanya, J’Ouvert (BBC), Walden and Anna X (Sky Arts) (Co-Producer), The Dresser, King Lear (Exec Producer), Dennis Kelly’s Together (BBC) (Producer). For cinema, Uncle Vanya and Walden. SFP’s productions of Hamlet, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, All About Eve and Leopoldstadt have been filmed for cinema release by NT Live, with All About Eve, Hamlet and Leopoldstadt featuring on NT at Home and Hamlet on Amazon’s Great British Theatre series.
SCOTT LANDIS
Scott Landis is an Olivier-nominated and two-time Tony Award-winning producer who has worked extensively in New York and London. He is the theatrical consultant for Universal Music Group (the world’s leading music company) and is currently developing a diverse slate of projects with several of their artists. Prior to his career in theatre, Mr. Landis was the youngest talent agent in show business and he represented some of the most iconic names in the movie, television and theatre industries.
THE SHARK IS BROKEN
Begins Sunday September 25, 2022
Media performance: 8:00 PM, Friday September 30
Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King Street West, Toronto, ON
Performance Schedule
Tuesday - Saturday: 8:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday matinees: 2:00 PM
Wednesday matinees: 1:30 PM
Added matinee on Thursday September 29: 1:30 PM
Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets $59 - $159 available only through www.mirvish.com and by phone at 1-800-461-3333
Facebook & Twitter: @mirvish
Instagram & YouTube: @mirvishproductions