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A Broken Umbrella Makes (A)Pizza A Family Affair

Lucy Gellman | June 13th, 2024

A Broken Umbrella Makes (A)Pizza A Family Affair

Culture & Community  |  Food & Drink  |  A Broken Umbrella Theatre Company  |  Arts & Culture  |  Food Business  |  Pizza  |  Jocelyn Square

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Remsen Welsh and Shane Quinn. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Frankie sat her daughter down at the counter of their pizza restaurant, a Foxon Park Soda in one hand as the other grazed her apron. It was late, and still the floors needed sweeping, the flour bins re-filling. Behind them, flames danced in the pizza oven. She took a glass, and the sound of bubbles whispered through the air. "La magia dell'Apizza" began to crackle to life.

That flour-dusted scene came to the pizza restaurant Next Door last Sunday, as members of A Broken Umbrella Theatre (ABUT) rehearsed A Slice (Of What's To Come), a new work in progress that celebrates New Haven's rich apizza culture. Part love story, part history and part musical theater, A Slice celebrates both pizza and family, paying homage to the generations who have thrown dough, managed the books, devised new pies and charmed thousands of customers to create a culinary tradition.

It comes to the International Festival of Arts & Ideas next week, in a preview of a full show that will debut in 2025. A Slice runs at Next Door at 175 Humphrey St. on June 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets and more information are available here.  

"Oftentimes, when you eat pizza, it's with a bunch of people you don't really know that well, or it's this deeply rooted family tradition," said Jes Mack, who is co-directing A Slice alongside ABUT Artistic Director Ruben Ortiz. As she spoke, she nibbled on a still-hot triangle of Next Door's eggplant rollatini pie. "People have strong feelings, right?"

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Top: Producer Aric Isaacs. Bottom: Alice McGill and Remsen Welsh.

Set in 1929, 1949, and 1989, A Slice tells the story of three generations of the Carbonizzatos, an Italian American family whose work is shaped as much by culinary prowess as it is by immigration, language, urban renewal, and old world tradition. While Pete, Sr. (who we don't see) technically owns the restaurant, it's his wife Lucrezia (Susan Kulp) who keeps the joint running. Around her, business buzzes, bringing with it a full cast of characters to tell the story. The great majority of them are related, reminding viewers that pizza, at least in New Haven, is very much a family affair.

Told in a non-linear way—the audience jumps from 1989 to 1929 to 1949 and back—it becomes a piece that is as much about mother-daughter relationships, generational trust building, and what it means to pass on a legacy as it is about the pies that bind.

Lucrezia, who insists on consistency and tradition, butts heads with her daughter Francesca or Frankie (Remsen Welsh), who in turn butts heads with her daughter Janice (Alice McGill). Pete, Jr. (Otto Fuller) seems like the heir apparent, until World War II upends the world as they know it. As time passes, the audience sees the work that goes into keeping the business afloat, including during multiple recessions and seismic changes for the city.

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Top: Doug Coffin. Bottom: Jes Mack.

In the thick of it all, characters like Cousin Mike (Matthew Gaffney) and Uncle Jimmy (Lou Mangini), Enzo (Ortiz) and Muhammad (Noah Brown), Charlie (Jonah Alderman, and later Ian Alderman) and a sweet Sinatra-esque crooner named Bruno (Shane Quinn), are there to throw decades of dough, fire up the ovens, and add some much-needed salt and seasoning to the script. The result is a work in progress that oozes as much heart as a good cheese pie, still piping hot from the coal-fired oven.  

The work has been baking for over a year. Last summer, Ortiz began to toss around the idea of a pizza show, but wasn't sure how exactly to put it together. Working out of its Blake Street hub, ABUT began to host weekly "creation sessions," dedicated to brainstorming and improvisation. Mack and Ortiz gave attendees prompts, from writing nuptial vows to pizza to sharing family food traditions. They improvised, acting out different pizza-adjacent characters like chefs, waitstaff and delivery truck drivers. They ate pies from across the city, teasing out differences in crust, toppings, levels of char and personal pizza histories.  

Members also sat down with resident historian Colin Caplan, whose love for apizza has birthed Taste of New Haven, the New Haven Grand Prix, and his 2018 book, Pizza In New Haven. Over pizza—because of course—Caplan took the company through New Haven pizza history, from the geographic specificity of Naples and Amalfi to the web of family members who birthed The Holy Pizza Trinity (Pepe's, Sally's, and Modern, iykyk), then kept growing their footprint ever outward.

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Top: Ian Alderman. Bottom: Isaacs and Ruben Ortiz.

By February, Mack and Ortiz were in the thick of writing. While the two have their own favorite pies, they tried to spread the love across the city's pizza landscape, from San Marzano tomatoes and baskets of briney, fresh clams to mashed potato slices topped with bacon and broccoli. As they worked, ABUT members also connected with Next Door owner Doug Coffin and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Coffin, whose roots go back to the New Haven Food Co-Op, taught them to throw dough, sprinkle cornmeal and choose toppings. When it became clear that the show would need more people—there are a total of 16 cast members—Mack and Ortiz also brought in new performers, from veteran performer Susan Kulp to kids who have grown up in and alongside the company (Jonah Alderman and Otto Fuller were literally born into it; Alice McGill is a current ECA student and Westvillian, while Noah Brown is a recent ECA grad). 

The result is a love letter to the Elm City and its residents, past and present. On Wooster Street, Pepe's opened with a bread oven and a culinary dream in June 1925. Sally's followed in 1938 and grew through the 1940s, including a visit from Frank Sinatra in 1941. Less than a mile away on State Street, Modern—which started as Tony's Apizza in 1934—changed hands from Nick Nuzzo to Bill and Mary Pustari in 1988. 

A Slice pulls from all of these, with reverent nods to quick-thinking matriarchs like Filomena Pepe and Flo Consiglio who made the businesses possible. It also recognizes newer additions to the landscape—Ernie's, Zuppardi's, Old World, BAR and Brick Oven just to name a few. To clinch the deal, "Carbonizzato" translates from Italian to "charred"—a signature aspect of any true New Haven pie.

 "We're honoring all [of the pizza restaurants] at the same time, while being connected to something bigger that people can relate to, which is family," Ortiz said. "At the end of the night, the show is inspired by pizza, but it's about family." 

At Sunday’s rehearsal, those months of work came to life in every corner of the restaurant. At the center of a makeshift stage, Bruno (Quinn) conjured "la magia dell'Apizza," pulling Frankie (Welsh) into a symphony of kitchen sounds with the simple extension of his arm. Behind the pizza counter, two family members began throwing cornmeal-colored discs of dough, their fingers working its putty-like surface. 

Around her, the sounds of pizza bloomed: garlic and tomatoes, pizza wheels working their way through soft pies and crackly crusts, sweet, carbonated soda. As she followed along on a script, Mack filled in narration and sound effects. 

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Top: Jonah Alderman. Bottom: Remsen Welsh and Susan Kulp.

In another scene, Frankie struggled to understand her own daughter, Janice, as she experimented in the kitchen. As the two orbited each other like magnetic, agitated atoms, it seemed that something had to give.  From the floor, Frankie started at a spot on the wall where a portrait of Lucrezia would soon hang.

A beat, and she softened. She walked over to Janice.

"I pushed you, just like my mother pushed me. To keep tradition, create consistency, legacy," she started. "I don’t want to make you someone you’re not."

Just an hour beforehand, cast members had paused for a lunch break, and used it to learn a few tricks of the trade. Between a counter and a pizza oven, Next Door Owner Doug Coffin dressed pies with an Olympic-level agility, reaching for toppings as he chatted with members of the cast. 

A longtime restaurateur, caterer, and former member of the New Haven Food Co-Op, Coffin entered New Haven pizza history when he put a wood-fired pizza oven on wheels in 2003. With its heavy green siding and fold-out kitchen, the Big Green Pizza Truck has since become an instantly recognizable part of the city.  

"This is fun," Coffin said of the performance, sprinkling mozzarella on a pie before adding generous dabs of ricotta. "You get used to seeing the same walls and the same things going on every day. It's such a delight to see new people in this space. On the day of, it'll be a bit of an adventure." 

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Shane Quinn as Bruno.

As pies emerged from the oven, Coffin passed them to Jonah Alderman, who worked a pizza cutter against the steaming surfaces. Beside him, Ian remembered working years ago as a "dresser" alongside Pepe's co-owner Gary Bimonte. Decades later, he tapped Coffin to cater his wedding. To stage A Slice at Next Door—in his son’s ABUT debut—feels like a full-circle moment. 

"We love innovation," he said, pausing to theatrically announce that an eggplant rigot was coming up, fresh from the oven. "As the company that brought theater on the road, we loved that they brought pizza on the road."

"Honest to God," chimed in producer Aric Issacs. "If there's one thing that we already sort of know, but that this process has hammered home, our pizza here—just about any pizza place here—is going to be better than any pizza place almost anywhere else."