“Welcome, one and all, to the Grand Guignol where nightmares and fantasies are interwoven as one!

Here, we embrace the exhibitions of cruelty and perversion!

Here, we submit to our pain and pleasure!

Here — right here — is my story.”

***

MAXA, The Maddest Woman in the World is an epic horror musical capturing the life story of Paula Maxa, the famed French tragedienne who died thousands of deaths for the patrons who haunted the ghastly theater known as the Grand Guignol. In 1940's France, it becomes Paula’s strange destiny to carry the very same horrors of the Grand Guignol into her private life. Only then does she confront the very night that changed her existence forever.

MAXA is a heartfelt, shrewd examination of the timeless struggle between trauma and healing, exemplified by Kauffman’s brilliant wordplay of levity and macabre, as well as Jacobsen’s complex, sweeping orchestrations with a contemporary electric treatment. Together, they tackle some of the deepest and most fragile aspects of humanity.

***

“With consummate skill, Maxa, the Princess of Blood, had died again.”

 ***

Book & Lyrics / Mika Kauffman
Music / Thomas Jacobsen

Standing against sexual assault: Consent Week at UMD

A group from the new musical MAXA also sang the finale song, called “Scream Into the Silence.”