Sonia Friedman Productions Announces New Dates For Guy Masterson’s THE SHARK IS BROKEN At The Ambassadors Theatre

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“Did I mention waves? Get ready for this play to make some. Do they need a bigger boat? Actually, I think they are going to need a bigger theatre — and soon.”- The Times ★★★★★

“This play packs plenty of bite.” - Metro ★★★★★

“Something unexpectedly profound and emotionally serrated lurks below the apparently frothy surface of this dive behind the scenes of the making of JAWS.” - The Telegraph ★★★★

“This play deserves a life beyond the Fringe; yes, they’re going to need a bigger theatre.” - The Arts Desk ★★★★

“An intoxicating combination of behind-the-scenes gossip and contemplation of the nature of popular art.” - The Stage ★★★★

Sonia Friedman Productions and Tulchin Bartner Productions
in association with 
Louise & Brad Edgerton

THE SHARK IS BROKEN
Written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon
Directed by Guy Masterson

Ian Shaw. Photo Nick Driftwood

Sonia Friedman Productions is delighted to announce new dates for The Shark is Broken at the Ambassadors Theatre after the production was postponed last year due to the pandemic.  Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon’s brilliantly funny play will now run in the West End from 9 October – 15 January. Tickets will go on general sale on Thursday 1 July at 10am. Current ticketholders will be notified of their new performance date by their point of purchase.

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…

A sell-out, critically acclaimed hit of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019, The Shark is Broken reveals the hilarious and moving behind-the-scenes drama on one of Hollywood’s all-time biggest blockbusters, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.  The play is co-written by Robert Shaw’s son Ian, who also plays his father, and Joseph Nixon. Guy Masterson directs with the full cast and creative team to be announced soon.

Ian Shaw said "I first watched ‘Jaws’ when I was about eight.  I loved it, even though it terrified me!  Like many others, sharks inhabited my dreams, and swimming was off the menu. Over forty years later, the prospect of playing my father in a play that Joseph and I wrote, and bringing to light the off-screen intrigue and comedy that went into the making of a masterpiece, is a unique and very special one."

Sonia Friedman said “‘Jaws’ was made against all odds, and became one of the greatest films of all time. So, we always knew we had to bring this brilliantly original play to the Ambassadors Theatre in spite of everything. Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon deliver a hilarious and uniquely personal perspective on one of the most legendary moments in film history, bringing three Hollywood icons to life onstage. Hysterically funny and oddly profound, ‘The Shark Is Broken’ is the sort of unexpected gem you only find at the Edinburgh Fringe, and I cannot wait to share it with West End audiences - at last!”

LISTINGS

Sonia Friedman Productions presents
The Shark is Broken
Written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon
Directed by Guy Masterson

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.

Box Office: 08448717615
Tickets from £10
Facebook: sharkisbrokentheplay | Twitter: @shark_broken | Instagram: @shark_broken

Ian Shaw
Ian Shaw trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, having obtained a BA in American Studies at Sussex University. His work in 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. TV 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.

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.  

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; Resolution; All Words For Sex; Adolf; Bye Bye Blackbird;The House Of Correction and Playing Burton. Credits as a performer include: The Boy's Own Story; Under 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.

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, the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, The Comeback at the Noël Coward Theatre and Walden, J’Ouvert and Anna X as part of the RE:EMERGE Season at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

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

Previous theatre productions include: Uncle Vanya, Mean Girls (Broadway), 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, Funny Girl, Farinelli and The King, 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, Hergés Adventures of Tintin, In Celebration, Boeing-Boeing, The Dumb Waiter, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Love Song, Faith Healer, Bent, Eh Joe, Donkeys’ Years, Otherwise Engaged, 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: ‘Honor 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 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.

Please visit Sonia Friedman Productions for full details of SFP’s theatre productions.