'Mystic Pizza" -- Back in Connecticut -- Is Now A Musical

First "Mystic Pizza" was a hit film which launched Julia Roberts’ career, now it's a musical which will run at the Ivoryton Playhouse in Essex, just a 20 minute drive from the film’s namesake pizza joint that inspired the iconic 1988 movie.

Billed as “a new musical you’ll love at first slice,” the show runs June 27 through July 28. The show, which premiered in 2021 at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, has a score compiled from pop tunes of '80s and ‘90s by artists such as Cyndi Lauper, Wilson Phillips, Berlin and Huey Lewis & the News. The songs include “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” ”True Colors,” “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “Manic Monday” and “The Power of Love.”

The film, which was shot in Mystic, centers on three young waitresses working in a small harbor town pizza parlor.

Director-choreographer Brian Feehan sees the musical as a kind of fairytale with a moral and a happy ending.

“These three women all want different things,” Feehan said. “In the end, they each get what they want because they discover that they had that power within themselves. The women don’t need the men in their lives to discover themselves.”

But there was one particular challenge for Sandy Rustin, who wrote the book for the musical, based on the story and characters created for the film by Amy Holden Jones.

“I felt we had to be mindful and tell that 1988 story through a modern feminist lens,” Rustin said. “So while it is absolutely nostalgic and celebratory of the era, the show definitely has a more contemporary sensibility because that’s who I am as a writer.”

For example, in the film the character of Kat is a 17-year-old girl who is a babysitter employed by a married man who becomes her first love when they have an affair.

“But through a contemporary lens, here’s this underage, doe-eyed girl employed by a married man who is clearly taking advantage of her," Rustin said. "That storyline is not attractive to me now, but how do we still celebrate its rom-com component?

As a solution, Rustin made the relationship of one between consenting adults, with Kit being slightly older, and eliminating the employee-employer dynamic.

Rustin said she wanted the story to be relevant for today. “I want girls to go this show and see that it celebrates sisterhood , friendship and female empowerment. There were so many ways to develop this show and these characters outside just the men in their lives and the male gaze — and that felt really exciting to me, to take a beloved story and update it just enough to show more of what these girls might be thinking and feeling.”

Rustin credits the film’s screenwriter Amy Holden Jones for being supportive of the changes in the story. “She was very open and understood the difference in where we were then and where we are now,” Rustin said.

“We wanted it to be still be a lighthearted, fun coming of age astray of three girls in the late ’80s who find out what they want in life and love,” she said.

“We wanted it to be still be a lighthearted, fun coming of age astray of three girls in the late ’80s who find out what they want in life and love,” she said.

“There are so few musicals written by women so its so exciting for us to get the show here that lovingly tells the coming-of-age story of these three young women with different aspirations as they navigate the world,” Ben Hope, the theater’s executive director, said. “We hope to tell the story of the film — but in a new way,”

Hope said he wants the musical to be a statewide celebration of Mystic and Connecticut.

That spotlight will also shine a fresh light of the 51-year-old shoreline pizza place that began it all.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Chris Zelepos, co-owner of the original Mystic Pizza. (There’s a second Mystic Pizza now in North Stonington.) “I never imagined it would become a musical. Over the years the movie has done wonders for our business and any additional exposure will also be great.”

Rustin said she looks forward to visiting the inspiration for the film — and now the musical. “We’ll definitely have a field trip there when we come up to see the show,” she said.