Bada Bing leads to Broadway

If their ambitious plans on Broadway go bada-bing, life after Tony Soprano will turn into a life of Tony Award aspirations for Steven and Maureen Van Zandt, the real-life husband and wife who play the mob couple Silvio and Gabriella Dante on “The Sopranos.”

With stage producer Nina Keneally (“Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Last Night of Ballyhoo”) and entertainment lawyer Jamie Lightstone, they’ve announced a new theatrical company, Renegade Theatre, that aims to debut next year. The strategy, says artistic director Maureen Van Zandt, is to recruit big-name actors to Broadway for two- or three-month limited runs that won’t overly interrupt their screen careers, giving them a chance to bite into meaty or risk-taking roles.

The artistic mission is to revive “classic American plays” -- Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, William Inge and Garson Kanin are on her short list for a first production -- not only on stage, but in a television studio, for a series in the tradition of the old “Playhouse 90.”

Van Zandt says they’ll need to raise $1.5 million to $2 million for each show. The gambit was her husband’s idea after he saw the effect of plays her acting company, With Out Papers, has staged at small theaters in New York since 2001. Yes, she says, James Gandolfini, the mob boss on “The Sopranos,” is aware and invited to propose plays and parts he’d like to do.

And since Renegade Theatre also would like to lure rock stars with thespian talents, so, presumably, is New Jersey’s boss of all bosses, Bruce Springsteen, to whom Steven Van Zandt is a longtime guitarist sidekick in the E Street Band.