The Max Awards celebrate their final gala this Monday at the Roman Theater in Mérida marked by the female characters

This Monday, June 1, the Roman Theater of Mérida will host the ceremony of the Max Awards for the Performing Arts, organized by the SGAE Foundation since 1998. The gala, which is being held for the first time in Extremadura, will be marked by the presence of female characters “both on stage and in the conception of the show”, as reported by the Awards organization.

The ceremony will be divided into four parts and will feature twelve performances of Greco-Latin theater, choreography, live music and choral voices that will evoke “the greatness” of the origin through rites and myths, as explained by the director of the gala, Cristina Silveira.

According to Silveira, the objective of the gala is to reclaim “the greatness of small beginnings, of the land, of roots and origins” in order to generate “a community of the arts that looks towards a peaceful future.”

PERFORMANCES DEDICATED TO CERES, MARGARITA XIRGU AND ROBE INIESTA

The event will feature a choir of 17 dancers and performers from across the region, a musical lineup of ten live performers, a soprano, video art and different monologues, some of them closely linked to the Roman Theater of Mérida and the International Classical Theater Festival.

Among the planned performances is a tribute to the goddess Ceres as a symbol of fertility and harvest. There will also be a tribute to Margarita

The event ‘In memoriam’ will be dedicated to Robe Iniesta with the song ‘Puntos suspensivos’, covered by the Mulier group from the Amadeus Choir of Puebla de la Calzada. The gala will close with ‘Hécuba’, starring Isabel Ordaz, dedicated to mothers who suffer the loss of their children in current wars, and a tribute to Pablo Guerrero that will evoke “his home and the soundtrack of his childhood”, as explained by the Max organization.

The gala can be followed from 10:00 p.m. on RTVE Play and from 11:40 p.m. on RTVE’s La 2, Canal Internacional and Canal Extremadura.

‘FUENTEOVEJUNA’ AND ‘LOS NUESTROS’, THE MOST NOMINATED WORKS

As for the finalist works, ‘Fuenteovejuna’, from the National Classical Theater Company, and ‘Los Nuestros’, from the National Dramatic Center (CDN – INAEM) and Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, are the two shows that aspire to the most categories, with five nominations each.

Both works will compete for the award for Best Theater Show with ‘The Third Fugue’, from the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, which has also accumulated four nominations; ‘1936’, from the National Dramatic Center (CDN – INAEM), El Terrat de Produccions and Check-in Producciones, with three; and ‘El Enthusiasm’, by Buxman Producciones (Kamikaze Theater) and National Dramatic Center.

Likewise, one of the new features of this edition has been the expansion of the competition categories to 22, two more than the previous year, incorporating recognitions for the Best Theater Cast and the Best Dance Cast. The finalists came from the 174 candidate shows, out of a total of 512 accepted for competition.

In the Best Dance Show category are ‘Carrer 024’, by Sol Picó; ‘Doma’, by DDC Danza – Daniel Doña; ‘Faula’, by Roser López Espinosa; ‘Folk as queer’, by La Ikònica; and ‘No’, by La Venidera. The Best New Show will go to ‘Taxidermia de una alondra’, by Iván López-Ortega; ‘Torcidxs’, by Ane Sagüés Abad; and ‘Zorra Dorada’, by Elisa Forcano and Barbecho Productions.

In Best Stage Direction, Lucía Carballal competes for ‘Los Nuestros’; Rakel Camacho Ríos, for ‘Fuenteovejuna’; and Victoria Szpunberg, for ‘The Third Fugue’. The Best Actress will go to Irene Escolar, for ‘People, Places and Things’; Lidia Otón, for ‘The horns of Don Friolera’; or Mona Martínez, for ‘Ours’. Miki Esparbé, for ‘Ours’, is nominated for Best Actor; Ton Vieira, for ‘The Third Fugue’; and Xavo Giménez, for ‘Yo soy 451’.

In dance, the candidates for Best Female Performer are Elisa Forcano, for ‘Zorra Dorada’; Irene Tena, for ‘No’; and Isabel Vázquez Torres, for ‘Zambra of the Good Savage’. In the men’s category, Albert Hernández competes, for ‘No’; Genaro Cibils, for ‘Faula’; and Juan Berlanga, for ‘Juancaballo’.

The gala will also feature the presentation of two direct designation awards. The 2026 Max Honor Award will go to the producer, cultural manager and theater entrepreneur Jesús Cimarro, who becomes the first producer to receive this award in the almost three decades of history of the awards. The Max Special Audience Award 2026 will be awarded to the show ‘Vuela’, by Sara Baras.

Cimarro himself, who participated in the meeting with the Madrid nominees held last Monday in Madrid, encouraged the candidates to enjoy the experience. “The nomination is a prize; being there is a prize,” he said, before remembering that the Roman Theater of Mérida is “one of the most important incomparable settings in this country, where more than 2,000 years ago actors took to the stage.”