Frank Pepe's Opens
Frank Pepe opens his iconic pizzeria on Wooster Street, pioneering New Haven's famous apizza. This production honors the golden age of New Haven pizza.
The Story
In Family Business: (A)Pizza Play, we join Lucrezia, Francesca, Janice, and Faith as they grapple with family, tradition, and legacy while the family pizza shop changes hands in 1929, 1949, 1989, and 2010. The play is inspired by New Haven's century-old apizza history.
Our production explores pizza magic (la magia dell'apizza) through New Haven's cultural and historic connection to pizza. Family Business: (A)Pizza Play is a continuation from 2024's A Slice.
The Carbonizatto Story
Pizza is a big deal in New Haven. We're the Pizza Capital of America, after all.
A Broken Umbrella Theatre has always wanted to tell the New Haven Apizza story, but not as a biography of any pizzaioli, but as a story of all of them.
To do that, we took New Haven's Apizza people and joined them into the fictionalized Carbonizzatto Family. Carbonizzatto, from the Italian for "carbonized" — a knowing wink to the black-dusted fingers walking out of any apizza shop.
Press
"A gentle, genuine, totally delightful homage to New Haven pizza and its real-life matriarchs."
— Lucy Gellman, Arts Counsel of New Haven
Gallery
