‘JAWS’ play co-producer cancels performance plans at Cape Cod cinema

Bill Hanney, owner of Bill Hanney's Entertainment Experience in Hyannis—formerly Regal Cinemas—has decided against hosting the Broadway hit The Shark is Broken at the Cape Cod Mall theater this summer.

Instead, Hanney will extend the play’s run in Edgartown for up to three additional weeks, beginning July 5 at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center, located at the island’s regional high school. Tickets will go on sale next week, he said.

Hanney and his team plan to visit Martha’s Vineyard next week to meet with venue and town officials, the island’s Chamber of Commerce, and “with some of the people who were actually in the movie who still live on the island.”

Before the summer run, The Shark is Broken will have a two-week engagement in May at Hanney’s North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly. Meanwhile, technicians in New York are currently constructing the boat for the production.

Hanney had originally intended to apply for a permit to set up a temporary stage in one of the cinema spaces, allowing him to bring The Shark is Broken to the Cape Cod Mall as part of the 50th-anniversary celebration of Jaws.

Co-produced by Hanney, The Shark is Broken premiered on Broadway in 2023. The play delves into the behind-the-scenes dynamics between actors Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider as they navigated production setbacks—including a malfunctioning mechanical shark—on the Martha’s Vineyard set of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic, Jaws.