{"id":2012567,"date":"2026-06-26T13:56:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2012567"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:56:46","slug":"jennifer-nettles-on-new-musical-giulia-the-poison-queen-of-palermo-being-the-most-rewarding-work-ive-ever-done-lin-manuel-mirandas-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2012567","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Nettles on New Musical \u2018Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo\u2019 Being \u2018The Most Rewarding Work I\u2019ve Ever Done\u2019 & Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GIULA-Nettles-MattLicari-Billboard-1800.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tA decade ago, Jennifer Nettles was casually scrolling online when she came across an article about female serial killers. She fell down a rabbit hole and discovered the story of Giulia Tofana, who, according to somewhat fuzzy history, allegedly poisoned her abusive husband in the 17th century in Sicily, and then went on supply potentially hundreds of women with her arsenic concoction to kill their badly behaving spouses. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tJennifer Nettles\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLin Manuel-Miranda\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSugarland\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a ton about her online, like maybe two or three articles,\u201d the Grammy and Emmy winner says, \u201cIt was known that she was a real person, but certain parts of her life and her death were unclear. So, there was enough to make me interested and inspired, but, thankfully, not too much to then hem me in to this very specific story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the years, the story continued to \u201chaunt\u201d the Sugarland singer, leading Nettles to begin writing a play about Tofana: \u201cFor a few years I would just touch on it here or there, but then when the pandemic hit and we were all locked down, I was like, \u2018Now is the time. I still have all this creative energy. It\u2019s got to go somewhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs she was writing, her friend, Broadway performer and producer Adam Zotovitch, asked Nettles, \u201cDo you think Giulia wants to sing?\u201d and Nettles enthusiastically replied, \u201cI do! I think she wants to.\u201d And with that, her play turned into a musical, with Nettles writing the music, lyrics and the book. She also stars as Giulia. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo, <\/em>directed by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman, will open Off Broadway Sunday (June 28) for a four-week run at New York City\u2019s Perelman Performing Arts Center. In a conversation edited for length and clarity, Nettles talked to Billboard<\/em> before rehearsals a few days before opening night.<\/p>\n

Very few people write the book, music and lyrics for an original musical and star in it. Is it safe to say this became an all-encompassing thing for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tPart of it was muse, part of it was obsession. I have called it for years my Great White Whale.<\/p>\n

Okay, Herman Melville!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI wanted to try it first in what would seem like much more conventional ways: \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to write the score, I\u2019m going to write the lyrics. And then I\u2019m going to collaborate with someone on the book,\u201d but it just never worked out. And I\u2019m so glad that it didn\u2019t because this has been really, truly the most rewarding work I think that I\u2019ve ever done, and I think it\u2019s because it has been so all encompassing for so long.<\/p>\n

When did it become clear to you that you could take this idea from conception to opening Sunday night at the Perelman?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tEverybody usually loves their own work, right? So, of course, I loved it. But as we went through it, it evolved then from just being under my hands and in my mouth to \u201cWe need to hear this as it might exist in a world with other voices,\u201d so we did several readings. It continued to really stand up. The response was very positive. I\u2019m my harshest critic. If I didn\u2019t think it was good, I wouldn\u2019t be putting it out there, and the same thing goes for my producer, Adam Zotovitch. Adam took it to [Perelman] PAC\u2019s Bill Rauch, who is the artistic director there and is just such a wonderful human being and just [won] a Tony as co-director of Cats: The Jellicle Ball<\/em>. He checked it out and loved it. And so, it just evolved from there.<\/p>\n

The Jellicle Ball is now on Broadway at the Broadhurst after starting at Perelman. Is that your goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt would have to be. What a dream that would be. But what we\u2019ve been missing this entire time\u2013 a very key player in putting on a show\u2013 is the audience. We need to see what lands, what doesn\u2019t. There are surprises all along the way. The audience is going to be really vital for what we\u2019re learning, and that\u2019s really what we want to do at PAC. We want to be able to get it on its feet for people to be able to see it and then see what we can learn to make it better.<\/p>\n

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How do you make Giulia, who was allegedly responsible for 600 deaths, a sympathetic creature?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe facts are sketchy. She confessed under torture, which we know is not the most reliable, but let\u2019s just assume that the 600 is right. \u00a0Regardless, when we talk about the hidden half of history, we see a lot of times it is women who have created their own paths and who have created their own agency in their lives. It\u2019s not surprising that in this case a woman who took agency to protect herself and to protect the women in her community has become vilified. A lot of times, that is what history has enjoyed doing, because they haven\u2019t wanted us to know what is possible. It\u2019s much easier for them to keep the narrative in a certain way where we are subjugated and where we don\u2019t get all these ideas of how to protect ourselves and we can form a community that makes us strong.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy favorite movie of all time is Gladiator<\/em>, because I love that character. He never steers off his course once he accepts the hero\u2019s call. When I saw that movie, I wanted to be that guy. Those are the kinds of characters that I relate to. So, where Giulia is concerned, this is the story of a warrior. She is someone who saw people who were in danger of losing their lives and she said, \u201cNot on my watch.\u201d That\u2019s what a hero does.<\/p>\n

So you do not see her as morally ambiguous at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI do. I don\u2019t think that her course strayed. Much like if we\u2019re using the metaphor of Gladiator<\/em>, I think her aim was always true. There\u2019s a song in this musical called \u201cSomething Holy, Something Broken,\u201d and then there\u2019s a line in another song where she says, \u201cHave you ever done something wrong for all the right reasons?\u201d There is a lot of moral ambiguity and we don\u2019t like that. As humans, we find it much easier to say \u201cthere is black and there is white. There is wrong and there is right.\u201d Well, sometimes there is, but there\u2019s a lot more gray that makes us a lot more uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been the biggest learning curve for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt is a huge process, especially for me in writing the book, the music and lyrics. For so long, it was just my baby. So then to take that and to hand it over to multiple someones and say, \u201cOkay, how do you see this?\u201d Every project that I\u2019ve done \u2014 be it from songwriting, Sugarland, television, TV, and film \u2014 those are all collaborative forms. But I will say, theater is quite intimately collaborative on another level, because there are so many people who are at the top of their game who are bringing their experience and vision to a piece. There is a culture within it, too, in terms of the space that we offer each other in the collaboration, so that was new to me.<\/p>\n

\n\t I was and am so grateful to have the collaborator in Mary Zimmerman. She is so confident in this piece. She\u2019s so trusting of the process, so trusting of the actors and what they bring to the piece, and it has really been a joy to be able to work with her on this.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0You\u2019ve starred in Chicago<\/em> and Waitress<\/em> on Broadway. How did that help you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s definitely helpful to have been in those productions to understand the rigors of the schedule and of the community and of the world and what it takes. But it\u2019s a very different process to originate a role, because when I would come into Chicago<\/em> or Waitress<\/em>, everything already existed. I just had to learn it and bring what I brought to the table. This is a much more generative process because it\u2019s all new. No one has done it before. That\u2019s what makes it so thrilling, so risky and so exciting.<\/p>\n

Have there been any points where you thought \u201cI may have bitten off more than I could chew here?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo, it\u2019s been great, [but] fI was worried. I even reached out to Lin-Manuel Miranda and just said, \u201cFriend, can I pick your brain on what does it mean to wear all of these hats at one time?\u201d And he was very gracious and offered me his own experience, which I found valuable. You rely on your collaborators and on your team in a different way when you\u2019re wearing all of these hats. I was curious about it before going in, like, \u201cWhat is this going to be? Am I going to feel like run ragged? Am I going to feel pulled in 20 directions?\u201d \u00a0But it has ended up to be a really organic sort of dance.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best advice that Lin-Manuel Miranda gave you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe said as you find your creative team, you have to trust them. That, for me, has been the best advice. And with this creative team that we have been so lucky to gather, that has been the case. I\u2019ve been able to do that.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens next, you have to be so proud of what you\u2019re already accomplished, which so few people have done. \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI have been so tender where I sometimes get overwhelmed. It\u2019s a lot to process when I look up there and I see this whole world that\u2019s been created from this seed of an idea. It very emotional for me\u2026 I\u2019m just excited for what we\u2019re about to learn when we get butts in the seats.<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/music-news\/jennifer-nettles-new-musical-giulia-lin-manuel-miranda-1236281680\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GIULA-Nettles-MattLicari-Billboard-1800.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard A decade ago, Jennifer Nettles was casually scrolling online when she came across an article about female serial killers. She fell down a rabbit hole and discovered the story of Giulia Tofana, who, according to somewhat fuzzy history, allegedly poisoned her abusive husband in the 17th century in Sicily, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2012567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2012567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2012567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2012567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2012567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}