Family Business: (A) Pizza Play

Inspired by the real stories of New Haven apizza pioneers, Family Business: (A)Pizza Play follows the Carbonizatto family’s pizza shop from it’s immigrant beginnings as it passes down over generations. This production explores New Haven’s pizza magic (la magia dell'apizza) from New Haven’s cultural and historic connection to pizza.

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, they 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.

Last year, in A Slice, we saw multiple generations of the Carbonizzattos throughout history, but always in New Haven and always at their pizza shop. The Carbonizattos struggled from generation to generation as they grappled with what they owe to future Carbonizattos — and what did they owe to those who came before? Because this is part of a larger story, and it’s not just about Apizza, it’s about a family. A Slice was only the seed for this full production, or as Bruno Cantante sings in the show, “One slice don’t make a pie.”

Host or Publisher International Festival of Arts & Ideas