Martha getting her teeth into comedy about shark classic

Jewish Telegraph, January 2025

MARTHA Geelan might only be 30, but her theatre CV is hugely impressive — and growing at an incredible rate.
Not content with being a director and associate director, Martha turned her hand to writing — creating with Jack Godfrey new musical Babies, which she also directed.
But her latest project sees her stick to just a directing role. The Londoner is the tour director of The Shark is Broken, which opens on Tuesday at The Lowry Theatre, Salford.
“I became involved with the show when it moved into the West End,” Martha told me.
“I wasn’t there for its original Edinburgh Fringe Festival run (in 2019), but I heard all about it.
“I had worked with Sonia Friedman Productions before, and just loved the sound of the project, so came on as the associate director in the West End.”
She added: “It’s the most fantastic piece. Ian has written it about his dad Robert. It’s an amazing insight into what it is to make a piece of art and be in a small space with two other people for a long time.
“It brings up a lot of really interesting themes.
“For the UK tour, the opportunity arose for me to take up the role of tour director, which has been a nice way to revisit the piece.
“We’ve got these amazing new cast members and the design is so gorgeous. So revisiting the design and working with that team again has been brilliant.”
Martha also spoke enthusiastically about the actors’ make-up.
“It’s quite unnerving when they walk out onto the set, they look exactly like the three Jaws actors,” she said.
Martha admits to being a fan of the Steven Spielberg film Jaws, but she never knew the story about what went on behind the scenes.
“When I first read the play, I was like, ‘This is amazing’,” she told me. “It’s so fascinating to find out — as someone who’s interested in the way art is made, and I’m a bit nosy, and like a bit of a gossip — about the dramas that went on backstage.
“But it’s also amazing to really think about what it takes to make something. And also what value there is in different kinds of art. There’s lots of big conversations about that in the play, which I find really fascinating, alongside all of the hilarious comedy.”
Having written a musical of her own has changed the way Martha looks at directing.
She said: “It’s helpful. Being a writer definitely helps me be a director, in the same way that being a director helped me be a writer.
“I think a lot about text and the music of text when I’m directing, and I think a lot about character and what’s going on beneath the surface.
“And that’s really important in this play because there’s so much going on beneath the surface for all these characters, and that’s where the comedy, drama and the tension lie.
“So being able to think about the piece of work from lots of different angles is definitely always helpful for me.”
Martha can’t choose a favourite out of musicals and plays.
She said: “I’ve really enjoyed this past year getting the chance to do a mixture of both.
“When you’re doing a musical as a director, it’s a totally different job, because you’re thinking more broadly about the mechanics of things and the overarching storytelling, and you’re collaborating with all these different creatives who have their own departments.
“But on a musical, you’ve got a choreographer and you’ve got a musical director, and they’re all thinking about their stuff.
“As a director, your job is slightly different, whereas when you’re working on a play, mostly what you’re thinking about is how these people are interacting with each other, the detail of it.”
Looking at her impressive CV, there are so many heavyweight productions, as well as a number of newcomers.
In addition to Babies, which was performed at London’s The Other Palace last year, Martha has also directed the likes of Legally Blonde, Hamlet, Agatha, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet and The Vagina Monologues.
She has also had many associate director and assistant director gigs, but there’s one on the list that jumps out — Fiddler on the Roof.
Martha was associate director with director Trevor Nunn for the 2018 version which won the Olivier Award for best musical revival.
“Fiddler on the Roof is one of my favourite jobs,” she said. “It’s one of the most amazing musicals that’s ever been written, because it’s about family, it’s about community, and it’s about how far people will go to protect the people they love and how complicated that is. Also the music is amazing.
“Thematically, I felt very connected to that. And so being a part of bringing that to life in the room was really special.
“And similarly with The Book Thief, it was an intergenerational piece. The youngest performers were like 11, all the way up to a range of adults. The sense of community that that creates is a really special thing to be a part of.”
Being Jewish — although not religious or involved in the community — made Martha relate more to Fiddler on the Roof.
Martha, who was raised in Barnet and Enfield, discovered her love of musicals as a teenager when she joined a youth drama group at Alyth Reform Synagogue in Golders Green.
“I did lots of musicals there,” she said. “It was really sweet that they brought a big gang of kids to see Babies.
“I’m a big believer in making theatre for for young people. I like making theatre for people who might not necessarily think of themselves as theatre people; they will come and see The Shark is Broken because they love Jaws or because they’re interested in film and hopefully when they leave, they’ll think, ‘Oh, that was actually a really great 90 minutes spent in the theatre’.”
Martha is juggling a number of jobs at the moment. As well as The Shark is Broken and The Producers (of which she is associate director), she is still further developing Babies.
“They say it takes 10 years for a musical to get from page to stage,” she said. “And we had quite a speedy time, because we started writing in 2020 and we were on at The Other Palace in 2024.
“So in terms of next steps, we’re figuring out the best one for it, but definitely the plan is that many, many more people will get to see this show.
“We’ve been nominated for a WhatsOnStage award for best new musical.”
Babies is competing with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Devil Wears Prada, MJ the Musical, Mean Girls and Why Am I So Single? for the award.
“We’re not expecting to win,” Martha said. “We’re just this little musical that’s still making its markets, it’s very flattering.
“The stuff that I want to make — and Babies is a prime example — is for the people that it’s about to come and see it and see themselves on stage. So it means a lot when people feel connected to it and feel ownership over it, because that’s absolutely the point of it.”
Martha is also directing a workshop of sorts at The Other Palace Studio.
Jane, written by Choir of Man actor Matt Nalton and acting royalty Jodie Steele, will have its first act staged from February 14–16 with a real heavyweight cast, featuring Leesa Tulley, Miracle Chance, Maiya Quansah-Breed, Alex Thomas-Smith, Rowan Macpherson and Toby Turpin.
“The Other Palace is really amazing for supporting the development of new work,” Martha said. “There’s an appetite for audiences to be invited into the really early stages of things being made. And that’s what’s happening here.
“It’s like opening the door to the writers’ room, essentially the rehearsal room, and being like, ‘Come and see what we have in its very early stages’.
“And as we experiment with hearing it out loud for the first time, the audience is invited to come and do the same, which is a really exciting direction that musical theatre is moving in.”