Jennifer Nettles on creating a killer antihero in 'Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo’

The Off-Broadway musical, starring the Grammy Award-winning musician as Sicilian apothecary and poisoner Giulia Tofana, also marks her debut as a theatre writer.

Summary

• Jennifer Nettles wrote and stars in the musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo off Broadway through August 2
• The musical dramatizes the story of real-life apothecary Giulia Tofana and the poison she created for women to kill their abusive husbands
• Nettles talks about creating her title antihero; her debut as a musical theatre writer; the audience response to the show; and the women who inspire her

If Giulia Tofana, the 17th-century Sicilian apothecary Jennifer Nettles plays in her new musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo, were around today, the 51-year-old performer would absolutely make use of her services.

Oh, wait, no, not those services. "I would want her to make me something for menopause!" Nettles told New York Theatre Guide with a hearty laugh. "I'd be like, 'Girl, give me the herbs. Help, please.' Thank god for HRT. I'm sure she would have been right on top of that had the science and technology worked for her, and I'm sure she helped with that in a lot of ways that she could."

Nettles has always seen Tofana as more of a helper than a harmer. Confirmed facts about her life are few, but the apothecary is credited with creating Aqua Tofana, a largely undetectable poison. In an era where divorce wasn't an option and wives were treated as property, she sold it primarily to women who wanted their abusive husbands gone.

About 10 years ago, Nettles first encountered Tofana in an article about female serial killers — some historians' estimates place Aqua Tofana's death toll in the 600s — but she disagreed with that label. Her Giulia does plenty of killing and finds herself drunk on her own burgeoning power more than once, but she just as often stops to wonder about the true benefit of doing "something wrong for all the right reasons," as one of her lyrics puts it.

As she embodies Tofana at the Perelman Performing Arts Center through August 2, Nettles is still refining the nuances of her antihero. She said her basic view of Tofana hasn't changed from the early days, "but the balance of her story and the way we're telling it, where the dark humor is concerned, a lot of that has come out in the performance of the piece, off the page."

Audiences seem to be agreeing with Nettles's empowering take. "Luckily, they're laughing at all the right times, but they're also laughing at times that we didn't expect," she said. "And not in an inappropriate way, either — in a way of, 'Okay, I want to lean in here.' That's great. They're responding perfectly ecstatically."

That's reassuring feedback to get as a first-time musical theatre writer. Of course, Nettles isn't a stranger to songwriting (she's one half of the country duo Sugarland as well as a solo musician, with three Grammys) or the stage (she's starred in Broadway's Chicago and Waitress), but Giulia marks the first time she's alchemizing both aspects of her career into one project. It's a natural progression, she said: "[Writing and performing] go hand in hand as a singer/songwriter. And don't get me wrong, it's an honor when someone else sings your music, but to be able to perform your own music, there's something really intimate about that relationship.

"That's also how I approached the writing, even for the other characters," she continued. Her score blends traditional Italian tarantella with modern pop and even hip-hop stylings, and each character has a distinct sound. "I wanted them to be able to sing music that I would enjoy singing. There are characters I look at; I'm like, I'm kind of jealous!"

Just as Giulia forms a community with the women who enlist her help, so has Nettles formed one (sans murder) with her company, led by Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman. Alongside her mom — a "boss babe" who modeled the independence and agency that drew Nettles to Tofana — Nettles shouted out the director among the women who inspire her.

"I don't know that I'll ever be able to put in words everything [Zimmerman] has done," she said. "She has elevated my skills as a writer just in working with her. I would slay a dragon for that woman."

Talk about a killer collaboration.

Get Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo tickets now.

Bridget Gross contributed reporting to this story.

Photo credit: Jennifer Nettles in Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo off Broadway. (Photos by Andy Henderson)