Andrew Kober on "Giulia," Saying Goodbye to "The Queen of Versailles," and a Decade on Broadway

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Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo runs from June 28 to July 26 at PAC NYC.

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About to world premiere Jennifer Nettles’ new musical, Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo , Andrew Kober reflects on the rehearsal process, his 10 Broadway shows starting with the beloved Hair revival, and performing in five musical productions—from The Queen of Versailles to The Wild Party —in one NYC season.

Tell us about Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo . What is the show about, who do you play in it, and did I pronounce it correctly?

You sure did… although hearing the mispronunciations has been one of the great joys of being in Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo.

It is this incredible, true story about this woman named Giulia Tofana in the 17th century in Palermo, Italy. It’s a story about female empowerment and it’s written by and starring Jennifer Nettles, who I was not super familiar with before. I knew the name and I remembered that she’d gone into Waitress. That was my main touchpoint with Jennifer Nettles.

This is among the best scores I’ve ever heard for the musical theatre, and it’s among the best cast of singers I’ve ever been a part of. I cannot believe how exciting this material is. It’s a thrilling, true story.

I play various unsavory dudes hanging around in Palermo. My main character is Pietro, but [I’m playing] what my wife calls an Andrew Kober track, in that I am playing many different guys who pop in with a slightly different hat or voice. It’s a thrilling piece and I’m so excited to be a part of it.

I’ve never been to the PAC downtown so I’m excited to move in there. We start tech next week, which will be really thrilling. I hear it’s just the most incredible space.

It’s so new! How cool to get to do a show in it when it’s near the beginning of its existence.

Absolutely. Shamefully, I’ve been in New York and its environs for [about] 20 years and have spent almost no time below 14th Street. I rarely have had occasion to, so I’m psyched to discover a part of the city that I haven’t spent a lot of time with. That’ll be fun for me, too.

Since you weren’t familiar with [Jennifer Nettles’] work before, have gone on a deep dive of her songs since you were cast?

Very thoroughly, yes. I tried to be cool about it because [she’s] my new boss and colleague and I don’t want to go too deep down a fandom rabbit hole. I want to try to stay cool at rehearsal. But her music is so exciting. It’s so melodic. The stuff she’s written for Giulia is pretty different than any of her other pop, country, rock, soul, folk, or world [music]. It’s a contemporary musical theatre score with songs that are very actively telling the story in a really rich way that I think could only really be served by the musical theatre.

And as much of a fan as I have become of her songwriting, I am equally a fan of her as a performer. She is the real thing as a singer and actor. She is certainly carrying a lot of weight in this musical, although not alone. Everyone’s got a lot to do. So yes, I’ve become the world’s biggest Jennifer Nettles fan.

This audition first came up when I was doing The Queen of Versailles . Pour one out for The Queen of Versailles . I mentioned [my audition] to Kristin Chenoweth and she was like, “Jen is the best, you’re going to love her! I’m going to send her a text right now and tell her: You’ve got to work with my friend, Kober.” Whether she did that and whether it had anything to do with anything, [I don’t know], but she was right: Jen is a gem, and getting to know her has been a treat.

I’m so excited to see it. As a theatre nerd, my entry point for learning about [most popular artists] is usually a musical they’re involved with. So I’m excited to dive into her work more, like you have.

It’s always an excuse for me to learn something that the real world knows about. [A new musical like this] is a nice touchpoint for people like you and I to make our way into what everyone else has been [listening] to while we’ve been seeing The Jellicle Ball .

Totally. Has any of the process involved research into the time period that the show takes place in?

Yes. We’re setting the show squarely when it’s set. It [involves] historical events and people, primarily. So the physical world of the play is very much 1600s Italy, which has required a fair amount of research. My character is fictional, so it hasn’t required a ton of research in that way. The music is contemporary musical theatre, in a way that is thrilling. [During] the first couple of days of [rehearsal], we talked a lot about finding our way from one [time period] to the other, finding a way to bridge those gaps. It’s obviously a thing that’s been done in the musical theatre, but when it’s done really successfully, it’s like when they translate a beautiful novel originally written in another language into English. A great translator can make a story sing.

I speak decent French. I could read Les Mis in French, and it would be a struggle and it would take me months. Instead, I read a good English translation, and because it’s in a language that is something I’m more comfortable with, the story is illuminated to me in a way it wouldn’t necessarily have been otherwise. That’s what this feels like to me. Could we have [told this story] in Baroque Italian song? Definitely. And there are certain musical and choreographic nods to that. But it’s a contemporary musical theatre score in a way that I think makes the storytelling and the intention and the character all really clear to audiences, which is great.

Can you talk more about your fellow cast mates? Is there anyone you’ve worked with before or anyone you’ve always wanted to work with? What has the cast collaboration been like?

Yes! I’m in the very lucky position of having been in this business for 20 years, so to walk into a room where I don’t really know anybody is fairly unusual for me at this point. There were a couple people I knew a little bit on day one, but it is my first time working with everybody in this cast in a real production!

The only person I really knew a bit before was Quentin Earl Darrington who I think is one of the most exciting talents working today and is just beginning to climb the enormous mountain of flowers that are going to be falling before him. We did some developmental work on this show, 3 Summers of Lincoln , [where] he played Frederick Douglass. He is absolutely thrilling in that show, so I’ve been a fan of his through the development of that for awhile. He’s doing astonishing work in this. The whole cast is.

In the last few years, I’ve sort of transitioned from being the oldest of the young people in the cast to the youngest of the old people in the cast, which is cool and totally good for me. The flip side of that is that I get to meet a lot of younger talent who kind of know each other but [who] I haven’t been exposed to much.

This entire cast is real vocalists, real dancers—myself included—that I had not had the good fortune of knowing about before so I get to become fans as we’re going.

The one exception of someone of whom I was a fan without having a personal connection was Mary Zimmerman, our director. Mary has been a legend for years an years. She is someone I was literally reading about in text books in college. Her production of Metamorphoses is one of the most iconic plays that’s ever been produced. So the Mary Zimmerman of it all was a little bit intimidating to me at first, as a fan of her work. I approached it with a little bit of trepidation, like: am I ready to be in a Mary Zimmerman show? It turns out she’s extremely accessible and open and warm in a way that shouldn’t have been surprising to me whatsoever. It’s been thrilling getting to be in the room with her and watching her work on this. Her work is really exciting on this.

So we have to talk about this crazy, crazy season you’ve had. Tell me if I’m missing anything here. You finished your run of Gypsy on Broadway. You opened a new musical on Broadway: The Queen of Versailles . You did both High Spirits and The Wild Party at Encores! Then you started rehearsal for a new musical, Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo , off-Broadway. Am I missing workshops and readings? That’s a crazy year!

You’re definitely missing workshops and readings. It’s one of those things where I feel like I’ve had so much downtime. I never feel that busy unless I’m in rehearsal for a project. But when you have to write a bio for a program, you look at [your credits and think]: wow, that looks like a career! When you say it all at once, it sounds like a really busy year.

I think you might be the actor who has done the most full new musical productions in the past year in New York. Honestly, that’s a lot of shows!

It’s a sort of dubious distinction. I had planned on just being in one for the whole year. This is the way it worked out. I’m really happy and lucky that it’s been [this] way [but] the thing that I am hungry for more than any other thing, partially [because] of age, is stability, which is something that is completely inaccessible to me at this point in my career. Some actors are able to find it. I have never done a super long run. I think I did almost two years in Les Mis , but even that was 12 years ago or so. If I could lock down Doctor Dillamond [in Wicked ] and sit down there for 20 years, God knows I would. But in lieu of that, it’s been really exciting to get to develop and be in the room, making exciting things and listening. It’s all over the map: revivals and new musicals, spanning genre and style. I have to remind myself of that. That’s a lot of new stuff I got to do this year.

You’re also reminding anyone who’s reading this [that] actors are heroes because I think Andrew Kober and I’m like: oh my god, 10 Broadway shows. And you’re like: no, there’s downtime and there are all of these realities of being an actor that people who are Broadway fans might not think about.

That’s something I’ve been bumping up on a lot lately. It’s 20 years since I graduated college [and] I just did my 10th Broadway show. Those feel like milestones that are worth reflecting on. And it’s funny because I think a lot about my dad. My dad worked for a company. He was a businessman. He worked there and he got a series of promotions and then eventually he retired and they gave him a watch or whatever. That was what an adult’s professional life looked like to me. The idea of that is sort of ingrained.

Part of it is generational too. I’m an elder millennial and part of it is that is sort of what we were presented as what [a career] looks like, too. I’m in this career path now where that is almost an impossibility for anybody. There’s no linear shape to a career in the arts for most people, which can be a blessing or a curse.

Michael Arden has this great tradition of every day at rehearsal, having a big circle up. Everybody can share whatever’s on their mind: I saw this last night, or I was thinking about this this morning, whatever. One day I came in and I had been thinking [about] one of those MC Escher drawings with the staircases that go every which way. I was talking about how it reminded me of a career as an actor. You’re trudging up those stairs and when you get there, you’re not actually anywhere. You’re actually furthe

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Andrew-Kober-Dives-Deep-Into-GIULIA-THE-POISON-QUEEN-OF-PALERMO-Saying-Goodbye-to-THE-QUEEN-OF-VERSAILLES-and-More-20260621)._