New Haven calls itself the pizza capital of the U.S., and the city’s residents don’t care what New Yorkers think about that. Now a stage production, debuting there on June 13, aims to capture the magic and colorful history of apizza, with the style’s No. 1 ambassador, Colin Caplan of Taste of New Haven, appearing in multiple small roles.

The play is called Family Business: (A)Pizza Play, and it will run for three weeks at A Broken Umbrella Theatre in New Haven.

The play tells the story of the fictional Carbonizzatto family who “struggle from generation to generation as they grapple with what they owe to future Carbonizzattos—and what do they owe to those who came before?”

And, oh, yeah, did we mention it’s a toe-tapping song-and-dance production? At last: Pizza: The Musical.

“It’s really great,” Caplan told PMQ. “I’m acting in it, too. They gave me three small parts. But it’s an amazing story, and it all coincides with Frank Pepe’s 100th anniversary in June.”

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana turns 100 on June 21.

Family Business: (A)Pizza Play is inspired by real-life stories of New Haven’s great apizza pioneers and explores themes of tradition, family dynamics and pizza’s cultural significance. It also stresses the importance and influence of immigrants on American society.

“Without immigrants, there is no America, OK?” Ian Alderman, executive director of A Broken Umbrella Theatre, told the crowd at a preview party held at BAR Pizza in March. “We are celebrating the Italian-Americans and…what those immigrants brought to America. [They] turned their food into Americans’ food….There are so many people who are taking pizza on as their own kind of food and putting it out into the world, and that is something this play is trying to explore and celebrate.”

According to A Broken Umbrella Theatre’s website, the organization “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 [derives] from the Italian for ‘carbonized’—a knowing wink to [customers’] black-dusted fingers walking out of any apizza shop.”

Ticket prices for Family Business: (A)Pizza Play range between $27.27 and $52.42 and can be purchased online here.

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