Sopranos Stars Reunite for UnderGround Zero Mob Drama

Official artwork for UnderGround Zero: 9/11 & The Mob, featuring Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa. Image issued by iHeartPodcasts for the series launch; used for editorial reporting.

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa have reunited for UnderGround Zero: 9/11 & The Mob, a five-part scripted audio drama released in full on September 1, 2026. The series also features their former Sopranos castmates Ray Abruzzo and Arthur J. Nascarella in a dramatized story about alleged Mafia profiteering during the World Trade Center cleanup.

Created and written by Stephen Kronish, the production combines real organized-crime history with fictionalized characters and incidents. That distinction is essential: iHeartPodcasts describes the underlying story as true, but it also states that names were changed and certain events were altered for dramatic purposes.

What to Know

• Release date: All five chapters became available through iHeartRadio and major podcast platforms on September 1, 2026.
• The cast: Michael Imperioli, Steve Schirripa, Ray Abruzzo and Arthur J. Nascarella lead the New York-set audio drama.
• The premise: A police official overseeing the World Trade Center cleanup confronts mob-connected operators trying to exploit emergency contracts, trucking and debris removal.

Four Sopranos actors lead a different New York mob story

Imperioli plays NYPD Lieutenant Commander Frank Sturiano, the official assigned to help oversee the cleanup operation. Schirripa plays Joe Bianchi, described by the series as a Genovese captain and Sturiano’s brother-in-law. Abruzzo voices Mickey Cronin, while Nascarella plays a character called “Dip” Di Pietro.

The casting carries obvious resonance for Sopranos viewers without reviving Christopher Moltisanti, Bobby Baccalieri, Little Carmine or Carlo Gervasi. These are new characters in a separate story. The attraction is hearing performers associated with television’s defining Mafia drama apply their chemistry and accents to a historical thriller built entirely through voices, music and sound design.

Imperioli is also an executive producer. In the official announcement, he said the project interested him as a New Yorker who lived through September 11 and described it as a story about family, loyalty and survival as much as crime. Schirripa emphasized the chance to work again with Abruzzo and Nascarella while exploring an event he thought he already understood.

The reunion extends a collaboration that continued long after HBO’s series ended. Imperioli and Schirripa previously hosted the episode-by-episode Talking Sopranos podcast. Their friendship also forms part of the painful story behind the call that told Imperioli James Gandolfini had died. Here, that familiar partnership is placed inside a fully scripted performance rather than a retrospective conversation.

The drama follows emergency cleanup contracts and a fictionalized investigation

The first chapter begins as New York responds to the September 11 attacks. Sturiano is placed in charge of screening companies involved in the World Trade Center cleanup while the fictional Bianchi begins organizing a criminal operation around the urgent demand for trucks, equipment and labor.

Later episodes move through alleged billing fraud, union corruption, debris yards and valuable material believed to be buried beneath the wreckage. The personal conflict tightens because the investigator and mob captain are related by marriage. That relationship gives the series a family-pressure mechanism familiar from Mafia drama while allowing the investigation to move through five concise chapters.

All five episodes arrived together rather than on a weekly schedule. Their listed running times range from 18 to 30 minutes, making the complete story a little under two hours. John Scott Dryden directed, Sacha Puttnam composed the original music, and Thoroughbred Studios, Goldhawk Productions and iHeartPodcasts produced the series.

Jeff Bewkes, the former Time Warner chief who helped launch Thoroughbred Studios, provides another connection to the HBO series. Bewkes said that one of his first decisions as head of HBO was greenlighting The Sopranos and called the new project an opportunity to reunite members of that cast 25 years later.

The historical background is real, but the podcast is not a documentary

New York organized crime’s influence in construction, carting and labor unions was well established before 2001. The emergency cleanup created enormous demand for precisely those industries while normal competitive procedures were compressed by the need to remove debris quickly and safely.

Contemporary reporting shows that concerns about exploitation were not invented for the drama. On September 28, 2001, UPI reported that a Manhattan grand jury was investigating whether 255 tons of World Trade Center scrap steel had been diverted. Later reporting examined alleged no-show jobs, mob-connected contractors and attempts to profit from cleanup work.

The city also deployed private integrity monitors to review contractors and billing. A 2006 congressional staff report, summarized by City Limits, found that monitors identified contractors with organized-crime ties, detected trucks billing while idle, referred suspected fraud for prosecution and recovered $47 million in overbilling. The report nevertheless characterized the monitoring program as broadly successful at limiting abuse during an unprecedented operation.

That documented context supports the series’ central concern: emergency public spending can attract businesses and labor networks already vulnerable to racketeering. It does not independently prove every meeting, family connection or confrontation heard in the audio drama.

iHeart’s own disclaimer says the production is based on real events while certain characters, names, incidents, locations and dialogue were fictionalized. Listeners should therefore treat Sturiano and Bianchi as dramatic vehicles unless a specific claim is tied to a public court record. The show’s Five Families framework is historically recognizable, but fictional scenes are not evidence. For the actual structure of those organizations, MobstersDaily’s guide to New York’s Five Families separates documented history from screen mythology.

UnderGround Zero uses the cast without copying The Sopranos

The obvious marketing hook is the reunion. Four actors from The Sopranos telling a New York Mafia story will invite listeners to hear traces of the characters they already know. The more interesting choice is the change in medium.

Audio removes the visual shorthand of tailored suits, social clubs and familiar neighborhoods. Authority has to emerge through vocal performance, pacing and sound. Imperioli can no longer rely on Christopher’s restless physical energy, and Schirripa cannot use Bobby’s size or wounded expressions. The actors must create a new relationship from sound alone.

The format also places the investigation ahead of mob glamour. The premise concerns public contracts, trucks, union access and paperwork—the infrastructure through which organized crime has historically converted influence into money. That is closer to the institutional focus of the Mafia Commission Trial than to a conventional story about one spectacular robbery.

Because the release coincides with the approach of the attacks’ 25th anniversary, restraint matters. The nearly 3,000 people killed and the workers exposed during the recovery are not atmosphere for a clever mob caper. The production’s value will depend on whether it keeps the human cost in the foreground while dramatizing the criminal opportunity that followed.

Why it matters and what comes next

UnderGround Zero gives MobstersDaily readers a new performance by four familiar actors, but its larger promise is a rarely dramatized part of organized-crime history. It asks what happens when a city’s need for immediate action collides with industries in which racketeers already possess labor, equipment and access.

There is no weekly wait: Chapters One through Five are available now on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts and other major podcast services. The complete release lets listeners judge both halves of the project at once—whether the cast creates a convincing thriller and whether the drama handles the historical tragedy responsibly.

The next useful step from the producers would be greater transparency about the records and cases that inspired the fictionalized plot. Until then, the accurate description is narrower than the promotional phrase “untold true story.” The series is a scripted drama rooted in documented concerns about Mafia influence and cleanup fraud, not a literal reconstruction of every event it depicts.

Sources

• iHeartMedia: Official launch announcement and cast statements
• iHeartRadio: Official series page and five-episode guide
• Deadline: Imperioli and Schirripa reunion report
• UPI Archives: September 2001 World Trade Center scrap-steel investigation
• City Limits: Ground Zero integrity monitoring and fraud investigations