(via Film Noir Photos: Girls Who Wear Glasses: Bernadette Peters)

In Washington Square Park, a man wearing a sandwich board advertises the Living Theater's production of Jack Gelber's play, The Connection, July 19, 1959. The Living Theater is America's oldest experimental theater company. It was among the first in the country to produce work by Brecht, Cocteau, Pirandello, T.S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein. It also led to the development of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway.

Dracula, a Comedy of Terrors || Interview with the Vampire (2022-)

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Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo

July 23, 2026 | Off-Broadway | PAC NYC | Evening | Musical | Original | 2H 30M | Talkback

First of all, Jennifer Nettles is wildly attractive and talented. Giulia is based on the true story of an Italian woman in the 1600 who was a professional poisoner, according to one story, and passed these poisons along to women in abusive marriages. The musical itself is full of dramatic license, as musicals are. In terms of a cohesive musical, I want to see more workshopping done. The plot is enthralling and the talent undeniable. I was madly in love with the costuming from the first moment. The Renaissance-era bodices all had such intricate embroidery, and it was just lovely to look at. The set was...interesting. Repetitive. Perhaps not the best usage of the space. The stage is largely bare save for three sliding doors that open and close to reveal a scene change. This is fun for the first time or two. But it happens so often and for such minor changes that it felt like the actors all spent half their time opening and closing the damn doors.

Writing the music, lyrics, and book for a musical in what is essentially a debut to that part of musical theatre is ambitious. And Jennifer Nettles shows that she has some potential in this field, but she needs to assemble a co-writing team to help mold and shape the show into a tighter and more coherent experience. The score is almost entirely sung-through with a good deal of unnecessary repetition in the choruses. I did like the wide breadth of musical styles she pulled from (though I will say, the opening number felt eerily similar to the opening of Waitress...), though some of it felt anachronistic to the particular scene. There are twenty-eight songs in this thing, and very little book development. And it's the book that needs more fleshing out, while the score could use a lot of cuts.

I've also got some major quibbles with the staging. Many of Giulia's big powerful solos are park-and-barks that stagnate on the stage. The most obvious example is the catalyst to her poisoning career in which her husband gets violent with her daughter. This is portrayed in an extended stylized fight sequence. And Giulia parks herself on one side of the stage and sings about a "split second life changing moment" but it takes for fucking ever. While her girl is getting savaged, she's just like...standing there. For five minutes. Do something. Why are you not throwing yourself in front of your young child? MOVE, DAMMIT. Instead, it's a long introspective song about fear and love, and if that's the case, you gotta freeze the other actors in place.

For this to soar, it needs work. It needs a stronger director, a major edit, and serious cuts, mostly to the male parts (pun intended). The Cardinal (in a Hellfire kind of way) gets some fantastic solos that all amount to the same thing. Cut them, trim them, or condense them, but do something. Focus more on the women and less on the men. I'm shocked that despite this being a supposedly-feminist piece, two of the six ensemble women don't even get a name. What's that about? They're part of this community but denied this basic humanization.

Verdict: A Lovely Night

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