Bruce, the new musical based on Carl Gottlieb’s novel The Jaws Log—a behind-the-scenes look at the summer blockbuster film Jaws—will make its world premiere at Seattle Rep’s Bagley Wright Theater next year.

Directed and choreographed by the Stratford Festival's Donna Feore, previews will begin May 27, 2022, prior to an official opening June 1 for a limited run through June 26. At Stratford Feore has directed and choreographed such varied musicals as Billy Elliot and Little Shop of Horrors in 2019, The Music Man and The Rocky Horror Show in 2018, Guys and Dolls in 2017 and A Chorus Line in 2016.

The Paper Mill Playhouse had been scheduled to present the world premiere in June 2021 in a co-production with Seattle Rep, but the pandemic altered those plans.

Featuring a book and lyrics by Bandstand's Robert Taylor and Richard Oberacker and music by Oberacker, Bruce tells the story of a then-virtually-unknown 26-year-old Steven Spielberg as he sets out in 1974 to film an adaptation of a best-selling novel featuring a highly dysfunctional mechanical star named Bruce.

Casting and additional creative team members will be announced at a later date.

The Seattle Rep season also features productions of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale; the new play with music Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer; Freestyle Love Supreme from Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Anthony Veneziale; the retelling of Shakespeare’s Richard III, Teenage Dick; a new translation of Ibsen’s Ghosts; and Sylvia Khoury's award-winning new play, Selling Kabul.

The upcoming season will get underway with a hybrid film and live Public Works theatrical experience in December, with in-person theatre productions beginning in January 2022. Visit SeattleRep.org.

From Andrew Gans for www.playbill.com.