Off-B'way Review: Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo

Jennifer Nettles and company in 
Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo.
Credit: Andy Henderson

You really have to admire author-actress Jennifer Nettles. In addition to playing the title role, the Grammy-winning vocalist of the duo Sugarland wrote the songs and book for the new musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo, now at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. She (or the producers) enlisted Tony-winner Mary Zimmerman to direct. Plus the basic idea is intriguing. The plot is based on a true story of a 17th-century Italian female apothecary who aided the women of her community by poisoning several abusive husbands including her own. Nettles creates a proto-feminist heroine, sort of a socially progressive Sweeney Todd. 

Unfortunately, while there are several entertaining elements, Giulia doesn’t quite come together for a satisfying whole. Nettles’ book is earnest in its desire to create a plucky protagonist challenging an oppressive patriarchy represented by a hypocritical cardinal (powerful Quentin Earl Darrington) and a villainous civil governor (mustache-twirling Christopher M. Ramirez). But Nettles doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind as to what kind of show this is. The tone is mostly deadly serious, but switches to dark humor halfway through the first act, but then switches to girl-power tract as Giulia gleefully massacres all the nasty men who assault their spouses and sets up a women’s talk therapy session in her shop. The show opens like Pippin with a commedia dell’arte troupe performing a scene-setting intro number led by an overplaying Bre Jackson. But then the play-within-a-play concept is dropped. 

B'way Update: Dolly Parton Musical

Carrie St. Louis, Katie Rose Clarke and
Quinn Titcomb in
Dolly: A True Original Musical in Nashville.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

That Dolly Parton musical is coming to Broadway after all. After receiving mostly negative reviews for its world premiere in Nashville last year, the show's future appeared uncertain. But it has just been announced Dolly: A True Original Musical will begin preview performances at the St. James Theater on Dec. 7 and open on Parton's 81st birthday on Jan. 19, 2027. The score will be composed of Parton's past hits and new tunes she has written especially for the show. Parton also collaborated on the book with Emmy winner Maria S. Schlatter (Parton's Christmas on the Square TV movie). Tony winner Barlett Sher (The King and I, South Pacific) directs. No word on casting as of yet. In Nashville, the lead role was played by three actresses, enacting different phases in the 11-time Grammy winner's life. Bio musicals on Cher and Donna Summer were similarly split three ways. Parton previously wrote the score to the musical version of 9 to 5, based on the movie in which she co-starred with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.

“My whole life has been a musical. A grand ole opera really and I can’t wait to present it to you on Broadway," says Parton in a statement. "I hope you enjoy watching as much as I’ve enjoyed livin’ it.”

“During our world premiere in Nashville, I was overwhelmed by the deep connection audiences have with Dolly. You mention her name and people light up and share a time that she has inspired them and brought them joy," says Sher. "But despite all of that genuine love, Dolly has never really shared her story before. She’s offered glimpses and peeks, but this musical allows her to reveal the unfiltered story in her own words. As we prepare to come to Broadway, we’re thrilled to show that rhinestones were never her whole story.”

Book Review: Stone Mattress

(Bought at the Little Red Book Shack in Hudson, NY for 50 cents.) In an afterword, Margaret Atwood explains the difference between tales and stories. She labels these "nine wicked tales" as influenced by folk lore and are less likely to require the verisimilitude of "stories." Atwood brilliantly takes elements of speculative futuristic fiction, fantasy, murder mystery and horror and weaves them into realistic settings. Each tale was totally absorbing. I especially enjoyed The Dead Hand Loves You, Torching the Dusties and the title story. In the Dead Hand, she satirizes the horror genre as an author seeks revenge on his former roommates. Torching the Dusties imagines a future where senior citizens are terrorized by entitled youngsters who feel they've been cheated of a decent planet by their elders. Stone Mattress details the perfect murder scenario. Atwood is such a master. 

Off-B'way Review: Birthright; A Walk on the Moon

Zoe Winters, Eli Gelb, Molly Ranson, Nate Mann,
and Hale Appleman in Birthright.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Two new Off-Broadway shows deal with Jewish characters. One deeply examines the complexities of Jewish identity while the other is a shallow musical treatment of familiar tropes combining a few acceptable songs with a tired plot. Jonathan Spector’s Birthright at MCC Theater is an overwhelming wallop of a play, encompassing America’s frayed relationship with Israel as well as the individual struggle to reconcile religious affiliation with personal ethics. Pamela Gray and AnnMarie Milazzo’s A Walk on the Moon, based on Gray’s 1999 screenplay, at the Laura Pels after productions at New York Stage and Film and the George Street Playhouse, is more like a walk in the park—a familiar, not unpleasant, but not particularly exciting park. 

As he did with the vaccine controversy in Eureka Day, Spector skillfully presents multiple sides of a difficult issue in Birthright. No one is a hero or a villain, the characters are just of a group of people muddling their way through the confusion of modern life. Running at three hours and 20 minutes, the play covers 18 crucial years, 2006 to 2024, in the lives of six young Jewish friends. Director Teddy Bergman miraculously keeps the action flowing so that those three hours never drag. Each of the three acts takes place during a reunion after their trip to Israel sponsored by the titular organization to encourage American Jews to explore their connections with the homeland. As the conflict between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration and the Palestinians metastasizes, each of the group differently deals with their raging reactions and their own sense of Judaism.

Eli Gelb and Zoe Winters
in Birthright.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

In Act One, subtitled “Two Jews, Three Opinions,” the sextet wrestles with the implications of their recent trip and their personal and political entanglements with Israel and each other as they start lives outside of college and family. The continuous action takes place at the home of Chaya’s parents in a Washington DC suburb, though we only meet Chaya’s mom. Scott Pask designed the handsome set. Act Two (“A Palace in Time”), set ten years later, is a series of brief, fractured scenes on the night before the wedding and move to Israel of Alona (fragile yet ultimately strong Molly Ranson). In Act Three (“Right of Return”), the group is reunited by tragedy and split by Hamas’ terrorist massacre and Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza. Here, as he did in Eureka Day, Spector incorporates text messages and Google searches projected onto Pask’s set. Bergman cleverly stages these scenes with Natasha Katz’s evocative lighting focusing on the reader of the digital messages with the rest of the cast in darkness and sounding like they’re underwater. David Bengali created the imaginative projections. 

Not only does Spector portray the personae’s tortured connections to their faith and culture, but also explores such weighty topics as the course of Jewish history, the changing means of communication, the coarsening of political dialogue and the meaning of community. 

The 15th Annual David Desk Awards

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock
in Little Bear Ridge Road.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The 2025-26 theater season is now over and that means it's time for the 15th annual David Desk Awards with my choices for the best onstage in NYC theater out of everything I've seen in the past twelve months. Shows like Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Libertation are not included because I considered them last year for their Off-Broadway runs. I categorize Masquerade, the immersive version of Phantom of the Opera as both a revival and a Unique Theatrical Experience. 

Play:
The Balusters (David Lindsay-Abaire)
Cold War Choir Practice (Ro Reddick)
Giant (Mark Rosenblatt)
Kyoto (Joe Murphy, Joe Robertson)
Little Bear Ridge Road (Samuel D. Hunter)
Meet the Cartozians (Talene Monahon)
Prince Faggot (Jordan Tannahill)
Punch (James Graham)

Musical:

The Lost Boys

Mexodus

My Joy Is Heavy

Saturday Church

Schmigadoon!

Revival of a Play:

Becky Shaw

Bug

Death of a Salesman

Galas

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

You Got Older

Revival of a Musical:

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The Baker’s Wife

The Gospel at Colonus

Masquerade

Ragtime

The Rocky Horror Show

Actor in a Play:

Jon Bernthal, Dog Day Afternoon

Will Harrison, Punch

John Krasinski, Angry Alan

Stephen Kunken, Kyoto

Nathan Lane, Death of a Salesman

John Lithgow, Giant

Okieriete Onaodowan, The Monsters

Micah Stock, Little Bear Ridge Road

Mark Strong, Oedipus

Actress in a Play:

Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Well, I’ll Let You Go

Carrie Coon, Bug

Lesley Manville, Oedipus

Laurie Metcalf, Little Bear Ridge Road

Aigner Mizzelle, The Monsters

Alia Shawkat, You Got Older

Actor in a Musical:

LJ Benet, The Lost Boys

Alex Brightman, Schmigadoon!

Nicholas Christopher, Chess

Luke Evans, The Rocky Horror Show

Joshua Henry, Ragtime

Actress in a Musical:

Abigail Bengson, My Joy Is Heavy

Sara Chase, Schmigadoon!

Caissie Levy, Ragtime

Marla Mindelle, Titanique

Book Review: Chilly Scenes of Winter

(Bought at the Little Red Book Shack in Hudson, NY for 50 cents): I've read many of Ann Beattie's story collections and novels, but never this one, her first big hit which put her on the literary map back in 1976. It was later filmed as Head Over Heels (the studio didn't like her original title). There isn't much of a plot. Unhappy twentysomething Charles pines for married Laura while tending to his mentally-ill mother Clara, and coping with hostile feelings towards his stepfather Pete. His sister Susan is still in college and engaged to a med student Charles doesn't like and his best friend Sam has just lost his job and moves in. The novel follows Charles through a cold winter as he stumbles his way through life, trying to find love and meaning in a boring government job and a frustrating romantic life.

I couldn't help liking Charles, even though he's a whiny complainer. Beattie gives him so many human flaws and foibles, it's hard not to sympathize with him. The book was proclaimed as a 1970s answer to Catcher in the Rye. Charles is not as disaffected and rebellious as Holden Caulfield, but he is a realistic example of the youth of the decade after the 1960s seeking their identity in a society that provides few role models. He is damaged because his father died when he was young and his mother has lost her grip on sanity. He becomes a needy desperate loner with few friends (except for Sam) and longs for the unattainable Laura. I enjoyed this work by Beattie more than her others. The quirkiness doesn't feel as forced as in many of her short stories.  

Off-B'way Review: La Cage Aux Folles

Billy Porter and Wayne Brady in
La Cage Aux Folles.
Credit: Jan Marcus

The mission of Encores! is to give obscure or forgotten musicals with some worthy elements—either a witty score, a fun book, or an opportunity for a contemporary performer to stretch themselves—another look. La Cage Aux Folles doesn’t really fit any of these criteria. The original 1983 production ran for over five years and there have been two revivals (2004 and 2010). The show has not slipped beneath notice and holds a place in the cultural memory for its trailblazing depiction of a loving gay couple humorously challenging bigotry. Jerry Herman’s spritely score contains many tunes which remain on the short-list for Favorite Broadway songs. Harvey Fierstein’s book retains its sitcom-y punch, with only a few dated spots.

However, Robert O’Hara’s new concert staging does give us chance to “see things from a different angle” as the lyrics to “I Am What I Am,” the show’s hit anthem of gay rights, suggests. With an all-black cast and an infusion of transgender imagery, O’Hara brings La Cage up to the present moment. David Zinn’s set and Clint Ramos and Michelle Ridley’s costumes evoke black, gay icons from Sylvester to Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman.

When the original production opened, stars George Hearn and Gene Barry made it abundantly clear in interviews they were both big, strapping straight guys only playing at being queer. (I even recall one feature article on the show in a national magazine telling of a straight chorus boy in drag harshly rejecting the flirtatious advances of a male stagehand.) I don’t recall any kissing between the two leads and I believe they only went as far as handing hands. Here, Wayne Brady and Billy Porter—the former has identified as “pansexual” and the latter as gay—are entirely believable as a married couple of many years. They aren’t afraid to display intimacy. At one point, Porter’s extravagant Albin recoils from a public display of affection from his husband Georges (Brady). This is the only moment that rings false. 

Porter is blazingly flamboyant and touching, unashamedly proclaiming his identity. His rendition of “I Am What I Am” at the first act finale brings down the house. He’s entirely at home as the top-billed drag entertainer and loving maternal figure in his family. Brady is equally professional and commanding as the—you should excuse the expression—straight man to Porter’s flashier role. He provides a solid anchor for Porter to take off from. 

As Jean-Michele, the son who requests Albin get tucked away in a closet to please his persecutive conservation in-laws, Alaman Diadhiou gets an impressive dance solo. Tonya Pinkins is a delight in the beefed-up role of Jacqueline, the world-weary restauranteur as is James Jackson Jr. as the sassy servant Jacob. Peter Francis James overplays the stuffy right-wing leader, emerging as a straw bogey man.

The staging can be rough at times. The lack of prep time shows. At one point, Porter flubbed a line and ad-libbed, “Only ten days, bitches,” referring to the abbreviated Encores! rehearsal period. The design elements are uneven, particularly Adam Honore’s harsh lighting which sometimes causes glare and audience members have to shield their eyes. Some Encores products have been so polished they could open on Broadway with little transition, but this one would require additional work. However, the choreography by Edgar Godineaux and Dormeshia is brilliantly executed and is a highlight. 

Despite the rough patches, this La Cage is a fun frolic and a bracing reminder of how far we’ve come in 40 years. Gay couples are now regularly in TV commercials and game shows (like Brady’s Let’s Make a Deal.) Musicals like this one were there first, making it a fitting way to end Gay Pride month.

June 18—28. Encores! at City Center, 131 W. 55th St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 30 mins. including intermission. nycityenter.org.

Billy Porter and cast
in La Cage Aux Folles
Credit: Joan Marcus