Three actors peer at the camera from inside a shark jaw — Paul J. Potenza as Robert Shaw, Christopher Marshall as Roy Scheider, and Cody Farkas as Richard Dreyfuss in promotional photos for Jobsite’s production of ‘THE SHARK IS BROKEN’ Credit: Courtesy James Zambon Productions.

Since it made a splash in theaters half a century ago, “Jaws” has been a classic film. But in 1974, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider didn’t know they were making a hit.

In this play, based on the misadventures of making the movie, the trio is seasick and sick of each other as they deal with storms, malfunctioning mechanical shark, big egos and short tempers.

It’s co-written by Ian Shaw, who starred as his father in the original production. Robert Shaw died three years after the film’s release, when Ian was 8. Before the show premiered at Edinburgh Film Festival in 2019, Ian said he spent most of his life avoiding association with his father.

“He was a very successful film star, but I wanted to be an actor in my own rights,” Shaw told People. But in the play, he confronts Robert’s grief over losing his own father as a child (Ian’s grandfather) to suicide.

“It’s about love, I think. And you feel it in the audience,” Shaw said. Jobsite Theater’s production opening at the Straz Center this week runs select dates and times through April 5.

Tickets start at $59.40 for ‘The Shark is Broken,’ opening Wednesday, March 11 in Tampa.