Art Form(s)
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https://www.patreon.com/maxyeshaye
I am interested in collaborative work.
St. Paul
Artist Statement
What does it mean to enact a persona in poetry, performance, in praxis? What mythologies shape us, and how do our lived experiences transform them? What steps can artists take toward liberation on individual, communal, and cosmic proportions? These questions are at the heart of my artistic practice, and I approach them as drag performer, director, playwright, poet, and theologian. These artistic roles all come under the umbrella of myth-maker. I am a mythopoet.
Max is a poet, playwright, independent scholar, and performing artist in Saint Paul, MN.
Brumberg-Kraus wrote and directed Incident at Peckerpah Ridge: a Western in Drag (Squirrel Haus Arts, Minneapolis, MN, 2025), Circe: Twilight of a Goddess (produced with Siren Island in Point San Pablo Harbor, CA, 2021), Henosis (BITE, Beloit, WI, 2016), Lepers in Paradise: a Genderbent Revue (produced by Beloit College Spiritual Life Program, WI, 2015), and An Immorality Play or the Interlude of Princess Tamar (co. director Alice Gehrke, BITE, Beloit, WI, 2014). Brumberg-Kraus wrote the book for Mixed Precipitation's production of Faust, a futuristic reimagining of the classic tale that wove together Gounod's opera with the music of Depeche Mode. They are the author of two books: The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer/Trans Liberation (punctum books, 2023), and Visions of Divine's Love: a Drag Theopoetic (AC Books, 2024), a collection of poems inspired by the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich and the 20th century drag queen Divine. For their writing, Brumberg-Kraus received the Theology of Prince Poetry Prize for "Ours to Give," An Academy of American Poets Prize for "Fag Hammadi," the Horace White Classical Prize for Thrice Great Medea (2013), and a Scholastic Gold Medal for their first play Divinities of the Sun (2012).
Brumberg-Kraus is the Artistic Director of The House of Larva Drag Co-Operative, which they co-founded in 2014. Performing as drag ogress Çicada L’Amour, House of Larva produces both small acts and full-length shows. As an actor and director, Max has worked with the Guthrie Theatre, Lightning Rod, Pangea World Theatre, 20% Theatre, Patrick's Cabaret, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, and the Rochester Arts Center. Brumberg-Kraus is an Artist Connector with Arts | Religion | Culture (ARC), and a recipient of the Building Interfaith America Grant and member of Interfaith America's Emerging Leaders Network. They were a fellow of the Multifaith Leadership Seminar at Yniversity of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, MN, served as an Emerging Leader Fellow with ARC in 2019, and were a fellow with Pangea’s Arts Organizing Institute in 2017-2018.
Max earned their MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College (2024), received an MA in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (2020), and studied studied classics and theatre in their undergrad at Beloit College. Their MFA thesis "Visionary Seeds: Cosmic Empathy, Art, and the Transformation of Consciousness" comprised a portfolio of writing, performances, video, handmade ritual objects, and critical essays engaging medieval mystic Julian of Norwich's Visions of Divine Love in conversation with Modernist poet H.D. and contemporary author Jeanette Winterson.
Max's work explores the intersection of gender and sexuality, embodiment, mysticism and consciousness, feminist poetics, myth, art, and ecology. They are currently working on I Sing for Bathsheba, a series of poetic monologues to be performed "in drag" based on women characters in the Dueteronomic books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings from the Tanakh; the book Art Anchorites: Co-Creating with a Medieval Mystic; and a "Thanksgiving Haggadah" in collaboration with their father Rabbi Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus.
Brumberg-Kraus wrote and directed Incident at Peckerpah Ridge: a Western in Drag (Squirrel Haus Arts, Minneapolis, MN, 2025), Circe: Twilight of a Goddess (produced with Siren Island in Point San Pablo Harbor, CA, 2021), Henosis (BITE, Beloit, WI, 2016), Lepers in Paradise: a Genderbent Revue (produced by Beloit College Spiritual Life Program, WI, 2015), and An Immorality Play or the Interlude of Princess Tamar (co. director Alice Gehrke, BITE, Beloit, WI, 2014). Brumberg-Kraus wrote the book for Mixed Precipitation's production of Faust, a futuristic reimagining of the classic tale that wove together Gounod's opera with the music of Depeche Mode. They are the author of two books: The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer/Trans Liberation (punctum books, 2023), and Visions of Divine's Love: a Drag Theopoetic (AC Books, 2024), a collection of poems inspired by the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich and the 20th century drag queen Divine. For their writing, Brumberg-Kraus received the Theology of Prince Poetry Prize for "Ours to Give," An Academy of American Poets Prize for "Fag Hammadi," the Horace White Classical Prize for Thrice Great Medea (2013), and a Scholastic Gold Medal for their first play Divinities of the Sun (2012).
Brumberg-Kraus is the Artistic Director of The House of Larva Drag Co-Operative, which they co-founded in 2014. Performing as drag ogress Çicada L’Amour, House of Larva produces both small acts and full-length shows. As an actor and director, Max has worked with the Guthrie Theatre, Lightning Rod, Pangea World Theatre, 20% Theatre, Patrick's Cabaret, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, and the Rochester Arts Center. Brumberg-Kraus is an Artist Connector with Arts | Religion | Culture (ARC), and a recipient of the Building Interfaith America Grant and member of Interfaith America's Emerging Leaders Network. They were a fellow of the Multifaith Leadership Seminar at Yniversity of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, MN, served as an Emerging Leader Fellow with ARC in 2019, and were a fellow with Pangea’s Arts Organizing Institute in 2017-2018.
Max earned their MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College (2024), received an MA in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (2020), and studied studied classics and theatre in their undergrad at Beloit College. Their MFA thesis "Visionary Seeds: Cosmic Empathy, Art, and the Transformation of Consciousness" comprised a portfolio of writing, performances, video, handmade ritual objects, and critical essays engaging medieval mystic Julian of Norwich's Visions of Divine Love in conversation with Modernist poet H.D. and contemporary author Jeanette Winterson.
Max's work explores the intersection of gender and sexuality, embodiment, mysticism and consciousness, feminist poetics, myth, art, and ecology. They are currently working on I Sing for Bathsheba, a series of poetic monologues to be performed "in drag" based on women characters in the Dueteronomic books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings from the Tanakh; the book Art Anchorites: Co-Creating with a Medieval Mystic; and a "Thanksgiving Haggadah" in collaboration with their father Rabbi Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus.
Brumberg-Kraus is available to guess lecture at the undergraduate and graduate level on topics relating to medieval visionary literature, medieval theatre, Senecan and Euripidean tragedy and their modern adaptations, religion and drama, feminist theory and theology, queer theory and theology, William Morris, ekphrastic writing, theology and film, midrash, myth, and drag.
Brumberg-Kraus offers the theatre/movement workshop "Gender and Spirituality Journey," workshops on drag, workshops on spiritual formation, and a Jewish form of bibliodrama called "Drashing the Body." Brumberg-Kraus is trained in conflict resolution and dialogue moderation through the Sustained Dialogue Institute.
Brumberg-Kraus also offers editing and writing consultations for creative (particularly theatre and poetry) and academic writing in the humanities.
Brumberg-Kraus offers the theatre/movement workshop "Gender and Spirituality Journey," workshops on drag, workshops on spiritual formation, and a Jewish form of bibliodrama called "Drashing the Body." Brumberg-Kraus is trained in conflict resolution and dialogue moderation through the Sustained Dialogue Institute.
Brumberg-Kraus also offers editing and writing consultations for creative (particularly theatre and poetry) and academic writing in the humanities.
Work Samples
