By Katelyn Manfre, Director of Community Programs & Partnerships
At Ovations, we often say that touring performances arrive to us “fully cooked,” meaning they have been developed, rehearsed, and produced elsewhere before they ever end up on our stages. This means we rarely get to peek into the “kitchen”—if you’ll excuse my continued metaphor—to see how these artists and stories get made.
Mystic Pizza: A New Musical was developed at Ogunquit Playhouse in 2021 click here to watch my interview with the Playhouse’s Artistic Director Bradford Kenney, but the story originates with the 1988 film of the same name, directed by Donald Petrie and featuring Julia Roberts in her breakout role (plus a teenage Matt Damon saying his first lines on film). 
Screenwriter Amy Holden Jones was inspired to write a coming-of-age film about young waitresses after visiting a pizza shop in Mystic, Connecticut. In the mid-1980s and the script was turned over for rewrites to sister screenwriters Perry Howze and Randy Howze, as their relationship seemed a natural fit for the central characters’ dynamic.
I was fortunate enough to sit down with the Howze sisters to discuss their roles in shaping the film and bringing the working waterfronts of New England to life. They are as warm and witty as the characters they wrote, skillfully finishing each other’s stories and sentences without missing a beat.
“We saved the good stuff, because there was a lot of good stuff in Amy’s script,” said Randy, “The characters, the basic relationships, the sociology; everything was laid in very beautifully.”
The sisters connected immediately with the New England setting of the story. Between schooling in Boston and New Haven, summers spent with family in Connecticut and midcoast Maine, they felt a connection to the place and people that populated the film.
“I worked in a shrimp factory in Rockland for one 4-hour shift,” Randy laughed.
Perry chimed in, “It was like the ‘I Love Lucy’ thing with the chocolates, only it was shrimp and everybody had to wear hair nets.”
“I remember my boss talking to me and I thought, I’m on the other side of the moon here. I think I got fired?” said Randy, before Perry quipped, “I think it was mutual.”
While the initial script for Mystic Pizza had been fully drafted by Jones, there was still a fair amount of shaping to do, including the elimination of an intended fourth central character. 
“We said, it’s too busy. You don’t have enough time to get in into any depth at all with any of the relationships,” said Perry.
The remaining trio of waitresses included sisters Daisy (Roberts) and Kat (Annabeth Gish), alongside their best friend Jojo (Lili Taylor).
The Howze sisters had some input on casting, noting that Taylor’s audition connected immediately. “We said ‘book her.’ She’s so perfect, it’s so obvious,” said Perry, “[The character of] Jojo wrote herself.”
Perry and Randy’s relationship naturally lent itself to crafting the “language of fights” and “intimacies of sisterhood” for the characters of Daisy and Kat.
In Randy’s words, “I did identify with Kat in a lot of ways. I’m younger, I’m more of an academic type in school and Perry’s more of a Scarlett O’Hara, blazing away—like Julia.”
“She’s the boring ‘good’ one and I’m the exciting ‘bad’ one,” laughed Perry.
A few years ago, the sisters began shopping around a sequel to Mystic Pizza, following the same characters, now fully grown, with daughters of their own; a new generation who have donned the iconic pizza joint’s uniforms.
“It’s charming and really fun,” said Perry, “We pitched it to MGM who owned [the film] at the time, but they said: We’re busy. We’re making it into a musical.”
It’s possible that one day we’ll see Mystic Pizza 2 in theaters, but in the meantime, the musical can be seen at Merrill Auditorium for two performances on October 28-29 at 7 PM. Tickets are available at portlandovations.org.