The Shark Is Broken

The Shark Is Broken at Boise Little Theater

Picture this: you're floating in the Atlantic on a cramped boat, the camera's rolling, and Bruce the shark won't work. Again. Welcome to the chaotic summer of 1975 when three very different actors, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider, found themselves stuck together, takes delayed, tempers rising, with nothing to do but wait. The Shark Is Broken brings that maddening stretch of Jaws production to hilarious life at Boise Little Theater on January 28, 2027, at 2:00 PM.

Written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, this wickedly funny comedy captures the hours between action and cut when a failing mechanical shark, weather delays, and sheer boredom left three performers trapped on a tiny boat with only their egos for company. Ian Shaw is Robert Shaw's son, bringing authentic family insight to the razor-sharp backstage drama. You'll watch Hollywood legends collide in close quarters as Shaw drowns his frustration in scotch, Dreyfuss intellectualizes everything, and Scheider just tries to keep the peace. The comedy comes from watching brilliant performers become their own worst enemies when there's no shark to fight except each other.

Directed by Curtis Ransom, this intimate production makes the most of the small stage at Boise Little Theater, perfectly mirroring that claustrophobic boat. If you're a film fan, you'll leave with new appreciation for how cinema's greatest thriller almost became cinema's greatest disaster, saved only by weather, stubbornness, and accidental genius.

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