Before Jaws terrified moviegoers and effectively invented the summer blockbuster, it almost sank itself. The mechanical shark would not work. The budget was spiraling. The weather was unreliable. And Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss were stuck together on a boat off Martha’s Vineyard, waiting through the delays that would become part of the film’s mythology.
This summer, Amphibian Stage brings that story to Fort Worth with The Shark is Broken, onstage July 22–August 16. Written by Ian Shaw, son of Robert Shaw, and Joseph Nixon, the play imagines what may have happened off-camera during the famously troubled 1974 shoot of Jaws, when three actors found themselves trapped aboard the Orca while the production stalled around them.
The result is less a play about a shark than a backstage comedy about ego, anxiety, competition, endurance, and the strange alchemy that can turn disaster into cultural phenomenon. Or, as Amphibian frames it: three actors, one broken shark, and 95 days stuck on a boat.
Directing the production is David A. Miller, who returns to Amphibian after helming the theater’s sold-out productions of Gutenberg! The Musical in 2008, 2009, and 2019. “I am thrilled to be back at Amphibian, a nurturing home for artists and audiences,” Miller says. “This play is such a joy to work on. It’s a fantastic combination of humor and heart as it navigates the passionate, complicated personalities of three actors under the pressures of a notoriously challenging production process.”
The production stars Brandon J. Murphy as Robert Shaw, Jakie Cabe as Roy Scheider, and Brandon Wilhelm as Richard Dreyfuss. Murphy, a six-time Amphibian veteran, has appeared in productions ranging from Sherlock Holmes at Stage West to work with Trinity Shakespeare Festival and South Coast Rep. Cabe, who brings more than three decades of acting and directing experience across DFW, was recently seen in Good Night, Oscar and The Play That Goes Wrong at WaterTower Theatre, and has previously appeared at Amphibian in a staged reading of Rajiv Joseph’s All This Intimacyand SparkFest’s Feeding the Cat, Incorrectly, Several Times Over. Wilhelm returns to Amphibian after appearing in Miller’s 2019 staging of Gutenberg! The Musical! Scott Eddins Jr. serves as understudy.
Behind the scenes, the creative team includes scenic designer Brian Clinnin, costume designer Hope Cox, lighting and projection designer Tristan Decker, sound designer David Lanza, fight choreographer Nathan Autrey, and stage manager Kaitlin Hatton.
Though The Shark is Broken draws on one of cinema’s most recognizable productions, the play is built to stand on its own, even for those who do not arrive with Jaws memorized. Reviewing the Broadway production for The Daily Beast, Tim Teeman observed that the play succeeds not as a monster story, but as a study of “male bonding and competitiveness, ego, frailty, fame, and film-making.”
At Amphibian, that tension sits at the center of the production. Long before Jaws became shorthand for suspense, it was a movie held together by delays, pressure, personality clashes, and the forced intimacy of artists waiting for something to work. The Shark is Broken looks back at that moment not simply as Hollywood trivia, but as a reminder that the making of a masterpiece is rarely elegant while it is happening.
The Shark is Broken runs July 22–August 16 at Amphibian Stage.