A Broken Umbrella Theatre
New Haven
Every production is rooted in a real moment from New Haven’s history. From colonial founding to apizza culture, our city’s story is the story we tell.
New Haven Founded
Puritan settlers establish the New Haven Colony and lay out the nine-square plan that still shapes the city.
Foundation of America's first planned city
New Haven Shelters the Three Judges
Edward Whalley, William Goffe, and John Dixwell find refuge in and around New Haven after helping condemn King Charles I, binding the city to one of colonial America’s most dramatic acts of political defiance.
A defining New Haven legend of resistance, secrecy, and survival
Yale Arrives
The Collegiate School moves from Saybrook to New Haven, helping define the city as an educational center.
Beginning of New Haven as an educational center
Yale College Is Named
The Collegiate School is renamed Yale College, deepening New Haven’s identity as a center of learning and influence.
Yale becomes a defining New Haven institution
Revolutionary War
New Haven plays a visible role in the American Revolution and in the region's political realignment.
Demonstrates the city's strategic importance
David Bushnell's Turtle Submarine
Yale-connected inventor David Bushnell puts the Turtle, the first submarine used for military action, into service during the Revolutionary War.
A New Haven-linked leap in military invention
Eli Whitney Invents the Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney's invention helps mark New Haven as a city of industrial ideas and engineering ambition.
Sparks the Industrial Revolution in America
Westville's Hidden Past
Stories of loss, piracy, and buried neighborhood memory become part of Westville folklore.
The kind of local legend that later fuels site-specific performance
Samuel Morse's Telegraph
Samuel Morse demonstrates the electric telegraph in New Haven, cementing the city's place in communication history.
Birth of modern communication
The Amistad Case Reaches New Haven
After the schooner La Amistad is seized, the legal fight over the freedom of the captive Africans moves through New Haven and becomes a landmark abolition-era case.
New Haven becomes a stage for a defining freedom case
Charles Goodyear and Vulcanized Rubber
Charles Goodyear's New Haven experiments with sulfur and rubber lead to vulcanization, a breakthrough that transforms manufacturing and transportation.
A material-science breakthrough with deep New Haven roots
New Haven's St. Patrick's Day Parade Begins
Members of the Hibernian Provident Society stage the first New Haven St. Patrick’s Day parade, establishing a public tradition that endures for generations.
An early and lasting expression of immigrant civic identity
Ebenezer Beecher's Match Factory
Ebenezer Beecher develops the automated matchstick machine in New Haven and helps build the Diamond Match story.
Industrial invention with a hidden human cost
Whalley Avenue Paved
Whalley Avenue becomes one of the first paved roads in America, showcasing New Haven's innovation in infrastructure.
Revolution in transportation infrastructure
Eli Whitney Blake's Rock Crusher
Eli Whitney Blake patents the jaw crusher after working on New Haven street paving, changing how stone and ore are processed for roadbuilding and industry.
Mechanized quarrying and construction at industrial scale
Donald Grant Mitchell's Edgewood
Writer Donald Grant Mitchell, also known as Ik Marvel, builds his dream estate Edgewood and becomes one of New Haven's literary dreamers.
A literary vision of retreat and imagination rooted in New Haven
Bicycle Invented Nearby
Pierre Lallement invents the safety bicycle in Ansonia, CT, and takes the first recorded 'header' over the handlebars.
Birth of modern personal transportation
Winchester Rifle Factory Era Begins
Oliver Winchester reorganizes New Haven Arms as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, launching the rifle factory legacy that becomes central to New Haven industry and labor history.
A major manufacturing empire takes root in New Haven
First Telephone Exchange
New Haven hosts the world's first telephone exchange, with 21 subscribers connected by George W. Coy.
Revolution in personal communication
Walter Camp Helps Create Modern Football
Working through Yale and the game’s rules committees in New Haven, Walter Camp pushes football toward its modern form with the line of scrimmage, the snap, and a more structured eleven-player game.
American football takes shape in New Haven
Free Public Library Opens
The New Haven Free Public Library opens its doors and becomes a cornerstone civic space for reading, gathering, and public memory.
Democratization of knowledge
Edgewood Park Created
Edgewood Park becomes one of New Haven's great public landscapes and an early creative home base for the company.
A public gathering space that becomes an artistic launch point
First Automobile License Plate
Connecticut issues the first automobile license plate in America to a New Haven resident.
Beginning of the automotive age
First Hamburger
Louis Lassen serves one of America's earliest hamburgers in New Haven.
Birth of an American culinary icon
A.C. Gilbert & the Erector Set
A.C. Gilbert invents the Erector Set in New Haven, launching one of America's most iconic toy companies.
Pioneer of educational toys
Yale Bowl Opens
The Yale Bowl opens in New Haven and becomes one of the country’s most iconic football venues, cementing the city’s place in the sport’s history.
Football culture gets a monumental New Haven home
Frank Pepe's Opens
Frank Pepe opens his pizzeria on Wooster Street and helps define New Haven's apizza legacy.
Birth of New Haven apizza culture
Sally's Apizza Opens
Salvatore Consiglio opens Sally's, deepening New Haven's reputation as a pizza city.
Golden age of New Haven pizza
Richard C. Lee Launches Urban Renewal
Under Mayor Richard C. Lee, New Haven begins one of the country’s most ambitious urban renewal programs, reshaping downtown and many neighborhoods for decades to come.
A dramatic remaking of the city with lasting consequences
Arts Renaissance
New Haven experiences a cultural renaissance as galleries, theaters, and music venues reshape the city's artistic life.
Establishment as an arts destination
Black Panther Trials and May Day Protests
The New Haven Black Panther trials draw national attention, bringing mass protest, political conflict, and questions of justice to the Green and the courthouse.
New Haven becomes a focal point in national protest politics
Arts & Ideas Festival Is Founded
The International Festival of Arts & Ideas begins in New Haven, building a citywide platform for performance, civic conversation, and public culture.
A signature festival helps define modern New Haven culture
Cultural Renaissance Continues
New Haven's arts scene continues to evolve as independent groups, festivals, and artist-led spaces keep the city's cultural life active.
Vibrant cultural ecosystem
Connecticut 250th
Connecticut prepares to mark 250 years of independence, with New Haven again at the center of public history storytelling.
Honoring revolutionary heritage
Places We’ve Transformed
We have a distinctive pattern: find a forgotten building, rehabilitate it through art, and hand it back to the community better than before.
Edgewood Park
Short Story by a TreeBecame an early proving ground for the company's outdoor, site-specific work
Edgewood Avenue Tunnel
ThunderboltTurned a neighborhood passageway into a performance site charged with local myth
446A Blake Street
Head Over Wheels / Play With MatchesServed A Broken Umbrella and the Regicides for over a decade
446 Blake
Regicides outdoor performance venue
Made space for New Haven's long-running improv troupe to gather audiences outdoors
Shubert Theatre
Seen Change!A landmark commissioned partnership with one of New Haven's historic theaters
280 Blake Street
The Umbrella
A permanent home for New Haven's creative community