By Coral Gables Gazette staff
More than 50 years after audiences packed the Miracle Theatre to see Jaws on the big screen, Actors’ Playhouse is bringing them behind the scenes of the film that helped define the modern summer blockbuster.
The company closes its 30th-anniversary season at the historic Coral Gables venue with the South Florida premiere of The Shark Is Broken, a Broadway and West End comedy about the chaos behind Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic.
The play runs July 15 through Aug. 9 in the Dr. Lawrence and Barbara Stein Center for the Performing Arts. Previews are Wednesday and Thursday, July 15 and 16, with opening night Friday, July 17. Evening performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 3 p.m.
Three actors, one broken shark
Set aboard the Orca, the fishing boat built for Jaws, the play imagines actors Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider trapped together for hours while the production’s famously unreliable mechanical shark refuses to cooperate.
As delays mount and tempers fray, the three men are left with nothing but time, their egos and each other, unaware they are making movie history.
The play was co-written by Ian Shaw, Robert Shaw’s son, drawing on his father’s personal journals from the production, alongside playwright Joseph Nixon. What begins as a comedy about a troubled film shoot widens into a study of ambition, insecurity and the strain of making art under pressure.
The elder Shaw, who played shark hunter Quint, died in 1978, three years after Jaws made him one of the era’s most recognizable screen actors.
From fringe run to Broadway
The Shark Is Broken began modestly, with an early run in Brighton before moving to the Edinburgh Fringe and then the West End, where it earned an Olivier Award nomination for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. The production later played Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre before transferring to Broadway’s John Golden Theatre in 2023.
Ian Shaw has an extensive stage and screen résumé of his own, including National Theatre and Manchester Royal Exchange credits and the Emmy-winning television film Hiroshima.
Directed by a longtime Miracle Theatre fixture
The Coral Gables production is directed by David Arisco, who has served as Actors’ Playhouse’s artistic director for 38 years, 30 of them at the Miracle Theatre, and has directed more than 180 productions for the company.
“The Shark Is Broken is much more than a play about a movie,” Arisco said in a statement, calling it “a sharp, witty look at the personalities behind an artistic masterpiece” and noting that the Miracle’s own history with Jaws made the production “especially meaningful” to bring to its stage.
The cast features Wesley Slade as Richard Dreyfuss, Iain Batchelor as Robert Shaw and Adam Poole as Roy Scheider. Slade was last seen at the Playhouse leading One Man, Two Guvnors and spent a decade as an improv performer at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. Batchelor returns to the Miracle stage for a third time. Poole has played the same role in three prior regional productions, including at the Laguna Playhouse and Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara.
What to know
The Shark Is Broken runs July 15 through Aug. 9 at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile. Previews are July 15 and 16, with opening night July 17. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m., with an additional weekday matinee Wednesday, July 22, at 2 p.m.
Tickets range from $40 to $80 and are available through Actors’ Playhouse or by calling 305-444-9293.
